'Becoming Chaz,' 'RuPaul’s Drag Race' Producers Say Persistence Led to Their Success

Producers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato are used to rejection. They get turned down so often for projects they pitch, they have a slogan, “No is the beginning of yes.”

That’s what the producing duo told an audience during a chat about their careers Saturday at . The pair were honored with the Outfest Achievement Award during the annual gay and lesbian film festival’s opening ceremonies Thursday night.

In introducing them, Outfest Executive Director Kirsten Schaffer said, “I don’t know anybody who has their finger on pop culture and queer culture the way these guys do.”

In their 25 years in the business, the pair have produced more than 200 TV series and documentaries. Among the TV shows they have created are The RuPaul Show, RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Fabulous Beekman Boys, Million Dollar Listing and Sex Change Hospital. Among the film documentaries they have done are The Eyes of Tammy Faye, 101 Rentboys, Inside Deep Throat and Becoming Chaz. 

But none of those projects happened easily. “RuPaul took 10 years to sell,” Bailey said. Barbato added, “We’ve only sold one thing in the room [during a pitch meeting] and then they took it away.”

The pair have learned to be persistent and not give up on their ideas. “We are so not strategic about what we do,” Barbato said. “We follow our passion.”

Tori Spelling works with them

The two met at NYU film school in the early '80s and were a couple for 20 years before breaking up in 2003. Yet as moderator Tori Spelling pointed out, they managed to remain business partners.

Spelling approached the pair about doing a reality series after watching The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Spelling was impressed that they managed to humanize Tammy Faye Bakker, the ex-wife of jailed, scandal ridden televangelist Jim Bakker. Spelling was looking to do the same thing for her image.

When she went to their offices for the first meeting, Spelling liked the fact that there was a porn shop in the first floor of the building, they had a transgender receptionist and they had dolls on their desk.

“I was in love,” said Spelling, who went on to make her reality series Tori & Dean: Inn Love with them. 

The pair is incredibly loyal to both their employees and their stars. “Once you’re in their family, you’re in there forever,” said Spelling, daughter of the late mogul Aaron Spelling. “I’ve never seen anyone more loyal to people, except for my dad.”

World of Wonder production company

Early in their career, Bailey and Barbato had a fake-it-until-you-make-it attitude. They set up their media production company, World of Wonder (named after an educational British comic strip), even though they didn’t have any projects lined up.

“World of Wonder existed more in our minds than in reality,” Barbato confessed. “We had a fax machine before they had a proper bed or couch, but that was about it.” 

Their first productions were taking clips of cheesy, early '80s cable access shows, airing on Manhattan cable, and packaging them for British TV. “British audiences loved it,” said Bailey. “They had never seen anything like these shows.”

Attracted to drag queens

By the late '80s, the pair were managing RuPaul’s career. “Everything I dreamed I could achieve, I saw reflected in his eyes,” RuPaul said in an email about his first meeting with Barbato.

When asked why they were attracted to drag queens and transgender people, why they do so many shows dealing with those topics, Barbato said, “We live in this macho society. I think so many of the issues we have in our society originate with gender. People who don’t conform to gender fascinate me.”  

Dream projects

One of the projects in their “No is the Beginning of Yes” drawer that Bailey continues to pitch is Past Life Makeover. The concept is that participants would go to a regression therapist to see who they were in a past life. They would then recreate some experience from that past life for them and return months later to see if their present day life had changed any way due to the past life experience.

Barbato’s “No is the Beginning of Yes” project is Animal House. This project would be like TV dating series The Bachelor, except that the participants would be dressed in “plushie” animal outfits the whole time. No one could be seen out of costume until the end when they would take off their costume and reveal what they looked like.

Another dream project is creating The Eyes of Tammy Faye: The Musical. Spelling pointed out that her mother, Candy Spelling, with whom she is reportedly feuding, has recently begun producing musicals.

With a gleam in his eyes Barbato laughed. “We should get your mother to give us the money to start,” he said.