Women often come up to Gerry Turner at airports and ask him to pose for a photo with him. This never happened in the first seven decades of his life. But a lot has changed since Mr. Turner, 72, signed 22 women to a reality TV show.
For example: He spends less time at his home in Indiana. He is always asked about his skin care routine. And he recently learned the term “grandpa.”
Mr. Turner is the star of “The Golden Bachelor,” the older version of “The Bachelor,” which begins Thursday. A franchise that normally follows wrinkle-free 20- and 30-somethings looking for love — or Instagram followers — now centers on a retiree who, until recently, didn’t have an Instagram account.
If Mr. Turner is feeling pressure, he didn’t show it in a video call from Los Angeles earlier this month. “I have nothing to lose,” he said.
Mr. Turner has an enviable demeanor, his mousy hair turning white at the temples and the wire of a hearing aid snaking over his ear. He had just finished filming a part of his daily life that required him to repeatedly brush his teeth in front of the camera.
Mr. Turner was married for 43 years to his high school sweetheart, Toni, who died in 2017. During a period of loneliness in 2020, he texted her two daughters, Jenny Young and Angie Warner, that he was considering applying for the show. “We thought he was joking,” Ms. Warner said.
He hopes viewers realize that dating after retirement isn’t as unusual as reality TV might make it seem.
“People my age still fall in love,” he said. “People my age still have hope and a fulfilled life.” When he heard about “The Golden Bachelor,” something clicked: “These were suddenly the things that I wanted to play in a show.”
“We’re not looking for… some slick silver fox.”
Mr. Turner doesn’t seem like someone who has spent his life trying to become famous. When asked if he had ever applied for a TV show, he laughed: “Never! Never.”
Mr. Turner grew up in Ottumwa, Iowa, the oldest of four children. He is close to his daughters and two granddaughters, Payton (21) and Charlee (16). He describes his retirement as a happy stream of gentle pastime: golf. Mini golf. We’re rooting for the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Each treat is healthier than the last. Is this all just a tasteful framework for a franchise that knows how to pack its lead?
“That’s 100 percent how he is in real life,” said Ms. Warner, 40, who has been trying to get her father to write with both thumbs instead of an index finger.
The casting team certainly could have taken a different route. “What we’re not looking for in a ‘Golden Bachelor’ is some kind of slick silver fox who has all the money in the world, flies privately from city to city and doesn’t feel sincere or friendly or warm or anything like that,” said Jason Ehrlich, executive producer and showrunner of “The Golden Bachelor.” The team’s interest in Mr. Turner was piqued by his “tragic” story of loss, Mr. Ehrlich said, but it was his honesty that ultimately won him the role.
“We were just looking for someone who had the biggest heart,” said Bennett Graebner, executive producer and showrunner.
Mr. Turner’s first love story began in high school. On Friday nights, he attended school basketball games and then rushed to dances at the YMCA. He “couldn’t wait to get there,” he said, because he knew a girl named Toni with dark hair and big eyes would be there.
They enjoyed the kind of love that wasn’t yet complicated by mortgages or childcare. “All you can think about is that one person and how attracted you are to them,” he said. “And that was the feeling I had with Toni.” During Mr. Turner’s junior year at the University of Iowa, they made wedding plans.
Mr. Turner worked in the food distribution industry and Toni worked as a volunteer coordinator for a hospital. While raising their daughters, the couple saved to buy a lakefront home where they could enjoy their retirement together. In 2017, a few days after moving in, Toni came down with a bacterial infection. Mr Turner took her to the emergency room, where she died eight days later.
As Mr. Turner looks at the picture of her that still hangs in his closet, he believes that she would approve of him looking for love again. But her portrayal was what worried him most when he signed on for a franchise that often provokes tragedy.
“I wanted to make sure the story of my wife’s death was told in a kind and sensitive way and not sensationalized,” he said. “I really didn’t want to tell that story over and over again. I wanted people to know about it, but I also wanted to move on.”
A second chance for love
In early 2020, Mr. Turner watched a season of “The Bachelor” that ended with an engagement between a 28-year-old airline pilot and a 23-year-old model, who, like most couples that emerge from the ABC franchise, no longer together.
Mr. Turner said he had watched seven or eight seasons of the series. He wasn’t always his biggest fan. “I felt kind of stuck in some of the drama,” he said. “Some of it seemed a little out of place, maybe not organic. That stopped me from being a regular viewer.”
But he looked closely enough to notice a casting call for older contestants that aired during an episode, texting his daughters. A few days later, he was nervous about how his hair looked on a Zoom call with producers.
The casting process stalled due to the pandemic but picked up speed again in February this year. “We came across his tape that had been there for some time,” said Mr. Ehrlich, the executive producer and showrunner. “And he was so wonderful.”
Producers began bombarding Mr. Turner with calls and text messages during his vacation, interrupting one of his mini-golf games. He initially thought the trial could wait until he returned to Indiana. “It was like, Oh no, we have to take you to a medical clinic for your STD test while you’re in Florida,” Mr. Turner said.
After each development, Mr. Turner called his daughters, who were both extremely excited and a little protective. His granddaughters told him the first night not to kiss anyone, he said, “I failed.”
Mr. Turner moved to Los Angeles in late July for just over a month of filming. It was a different experience than dating as a teenager, he said, not least because of the cameras and microphones that followed his every move.
He had certain conversations off camera so as not to embarrass any of the women. But for the most part it was an adult audience. The women he dated ranged from 60 to 75 and were introduced in August, along with fun facts like “Sandra is very proud of her high credit score.” In his view, any drama was limited to “a very minor situation.”
Mr Turner said he was also becoming more conscious about sex and he hoped it hadn’t changed too much since his last visit to the market. “It was hard enough learning it the first way,” he said. “If there is something new, I have to learn it immediately.”
As much as the franchise has highlighted Mr. Turner as the wholesome grandfather, it has also positioned him as a sex symbol. These include ads featuring an eight-foot-tall picture of him with the caption “EAT YOUR HEART OUT” on buses in New York City.
Like any experienced reality TV participant, he considers when and how he should participate.
“I don’t know what it means to be a ‘Grandzaddy,’ and I don’t know what ‘Rizz’ is, and I really don’t know what it means to be trendy,” he said. “All of these things are somehow irrelevant to me. They don’t matter.”
Julia Jacobs contributed reporting.