Nancy Moonves is looking to make her own mark

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

It wasn’t exactly the Balloon Boy of hoaxes, but last year a wedding video on YouTube in which the best man accidentally pushes the bride and minister into a swimming pool became an Internet sensation, attracting 50 million views and even showing up on ‘The Today Show,’ ‘Good Morning America’ and ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show.’

The video, it turned out, was really a trailer for a little indie feature called ‘Chloe and Keith’s Wedding,’ a mock documentary of a wedding that made its Internet debut earlier this month and is available for rental or download.

More interesting than unraveling the history behind the viral video turned movie is unraveling who is behind it. The executive producer and one of the financial backers behind ‘Chloe and Keith’s Wedding’ is Nancy Moonves, whose previous best known credit was Mrs. Leslie Moonves, wife of the CBS chief executive until the couple split in 2004.

Since then, Moonves -- who came to Hollywood 33 years ago as an actress and was even a subject of a 1976 front-page Los Angeles Times story about struggling actors (she was described as a ‘younger, tougher Maureen O’Hara’ with a ‘Susan Heyward’ quality) -- has decided she really wants to produce. She opened up her own shop, Lighten Up Productions, and is trying to get some film and TV projects off the ground.

She got involved in ‘Chloe and Keith’s Wedding’ in the classic Hollywood fashion. Her landscaper’s sister was dating someone on the film.

‘They needed an outside location,’ Moonves said. Indeed, most of the film is shot outdoors on her property in Brentwood. That’s her pool that the bride and minister splash into. Moonves read the script and agreed to rent her property for the shoot and then ended up investing in the film. The film cost under $100,000 to make and director Archie Gips expects to turn a profit. ‘Because of the nature of the clip [which we’ve posted below], we were able to license it internationally and [with] that, along with selling the DVD, we should break even very soon and hope to make money,’ he said.

As for trying to make her way as a producer after being part of a high-profile Hollywood power couple, Moonves said ‘I’m taking my share of that and it is well deserved ... the community has been really nice to me. I didn’t know it was going to be that way.’

-- Joe Flint