`Psychic Friends' Co-Host Likes What These Voices Are Saying

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - If you can read auras, you already know that Linda Georgian's glows like a beacon. It flashes yellow for success and green for money, and why not? The former phys ed teacher serves as co-host of "Psychic Friends Network," the country's top-ranked infomercial.

Oh. You don't read auras?

Then take Georgian's word for it, as so many of you already do. Four million folks have dialed the "Psychic Friends" 900 number since it started three years ago, responding to Georgian's mantralike urging: "All it takes is a telephone and an open mind."

What? You've never seen "Psychic Friends"? Then you don't watch enough late-night TV.

Three hundred times a week somewhere in the country, this 30-minute infomercial airs around 2 a.m. - with Dionne Warwick as Georgian's sidekick. The show features psychic-tale testimonials re-created by actors and Georgian reading auras of studio audience members. "Three hundred times a week." Georgian may be outmugging even Jeane Dixon.

She saw it coming

For Georgian, 49, the exposure means a $100,000 three-book contract, maybe a shot at her own TV talk show, and a hallowed place in that infomercial pantheon alongside the Hair Club's Sy Sperling and Susan "Stop the Insanity" Powter.

Not that she's surprised.

She's a psychic, remember?

"Psychically, I can see things that are going to happen," says Georgian, back home in Fort Lauderdale after filming "Psychic Friends" No. 9 in Los Angeles.

See, Georgian talks like that. She also talks about reading auras and hearing voices and working with guardian angels. She has 66 guardian angels, incidentally, including a diet angel to keep her eating right and a business-opportunity angel to network.

By now you might think Georgian is waaaaaaaaay out there. Then again, maybe not.

"Everybody needs something to believe in, and a lot of intelligent people believe in things like this," says Marge Cowan, a hotel owner for 25 years who introduced Georgian to Warwick, a longtime friend of Cowan's.

Still, Cowan was more impressed by Georgian's ambition than her aura when they met 12 years ago. "She was a nice girl trying to get ahead," Cowan says. "A nice girl with a lot of ambition."

Georgian is instantly recognizable with her streaked hair teased high and her distinctive voice, once described by Working Woman magazine as "so nasal it could peel paint."

Home is a comfortable bungalow where she has lived for 15 years, two blocks from the beach. The decor is overstuffed furniture, Tiffany-esque lamps and a large angel painting on a wall. No crystal balls. No smoking candles. Everything tasteful.

The never-married Georgian shares her space with a Pekingese, Smarty. Once, she saw a husband and kids in her future. It didn't happen. Or rather: "Psychically, I changed my destiny," she says. But if she meets a man she finds appealing, you can bet she'll check his aura first.

Her conversation is filled with otherworldy references, such as "Keep your aura bright," her version of "Have a good day." But for all the psychic patter, her message is down-to-earth: Keep focused. Have faith. If one road doesn't get you there, try another. She's secure enough to joke about her self-proclaimed powers: "Call me," she said, when this interview was arranged, "or just send me a telepathic message."

And she's open enough to say that many "Psychic Friends" callers need a pal more than a psychic, albeit a pal at $3.99 a minute for an average 10-minute call.

"Even when people have friends and family, they're not available 24 hours a day," Georgian says. "And some people are just alone."

Who knows what color Georgian's aura flashed when she started her psychic career? Red maybe, for frustration.

Leaving nothing to karma, she labored for 10 years on her self-financed "Linda Georgian Show," which aired sporadically on Broward County, Fla., cable from 1981 to 1991. The format: Georgian's psychic readings interspersed with interviews of female bikers and liposuction surgeons.

Still, her persistence paid off. In '83, she persuaded Cowan to let her tape her show at Cowan's Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Fla., and interview visiting celebs. Cowan, in turn, introduced her to Warwick, who performed at the hotel. Because of that early relationship, Georgian turned to Warwick nearly a decade later when she needed a celebrity to co-host the infomercial.

But at their initial meeting, Georgian had years of obscurity still ahead.

In '84, she self-published a book covering everything from psychic powers to miraculous bee pollen. Then she mortgaged her home for $40,000 to buy a van and cover the country, promoting herself and her book.

By 1992, Georgian was still staging psychic seminars in South Florida and charging $35 for 20-minute psychic sessions and $10 to take pictures of auras and interpret the colors. Black, disaster. White, enlightenment. Purple, powerful.

The future looks bright

That same year, she connected with Baltimore-based Inphomation, which makes infomercials. The company needed a psychic for an infomercial promoting a 900 number. In March 1992, the first "Psychic Friends" aired. Six months later, Georgian noticed that strangers recognized her. Three years - and nine "Psychic Friends" episodes later - the future looks very bright.

Late last month, "Psychic Friends" ranked as the No. 1 infomercial in the country. It was also No. 1 for 1994, according to the Greensheet Direct Response Television Monitoring Report, which ranks the 600 infomercials produced each year based on frequency of airing, longevity and the amount spent on purchasing TV air time.

Now here's the irony: Georgian isn't the psychic doing readings for those who call the 900 number. Rather, calls are routed to 1,500 self-proclaimed psychics around the country.

Georgian still does psychic readings in the comfort of her home. By phone. In fact, she has a listed number. Her post-fame price is $75 for a 30-minute session, $20 for an aura photo and interpretation. "I do not charge by the minute," she says, emphatically.

But really now, how does one phone in psychic readings? And on command?

"It's a gift," she says. "If you don't have the gift, it's a scam."

Georgian believes she had "the gift" all along but didn't recognize it as a child. Growing up, the Cleveland-born, Catholic-raised kid wanted nothing more exotic than to be a phys ed teacher. Her father was a golf course greenskeeper, and Georgian, an 8 handicap golfer, considered going pro.

She earned a bachelor's degree in health and physical education at Ohio University. Then, from the late '60s to mid-'70s, she taught health and coached girls in volleyball and basketball in Hialeah, Fla., and in Fort Lauderdale.

In retrospect, Georgian says her psychic connection is a family thing. Her mom heard voices. Georgian hears voices. Mom did psychic healings. Georgian does psychic healings. Her mother died four years ago but still speaks to her daughter. Her messages are pure Mom, such as "Get more rest" and "Don't overcook the pasta."

Still, Georgian didn't turn psychic pro until the early '70s. By then, she had met Jewell Williams, a well-known South Florida psychic, now deceased.

Says Georgian: "She told me I'd do my work in front of millions of people."

Today, Georgian is more than the show's leading psychic; she's the promoter. Grammy winner Warwick doesn't do interviews about "Psychic Friends," but she's a believer. She said so on "Geraldo." Cowan says Warwick consulted psychics before signing contracts and gets readings from Georgian. (On one "Psychic Friends" episode, Georgian tells Warwick she'll find love within two years. Warwick doesn't appear thrilled about the wait.)

Georgian doesn't need a crystal ball to see her future. Her first post-fame book, "Your Guardian Angels," appeared last fall. Her second, "Communicating With the Dead: Reaching Friends and Loved Ones Who Have Passed on to Another Dimension of Life," comes out this fall, and her third," Create Your Own Future," is planned for 1996.