Suicide Marred Swedish Version Of `Survivor'

"Survivor," a CBS program that will strand contestants on a remote island to compete for a $1 million prize, was promoted by its producer as putting only the players' egos at risk.

A Swedish version of the show, however, began with a dark incident: In the initial season of "Expedition Robinson" in 1997, the first contestant to be declared a loser committed suicide a month after returning home.

The network that airs the highly popular program in Sweden denied any responsibility, but the man's widow blamed the show then and still does. CBS said it believes the program was not a factor.

"There is no evidence to suggest a connection between the young man's tragedy and the show," said CBS spokesman Chris Ender.

"Survivor," scheduled to air next summer, will bring 16 American men and women together on a South China Sea island, with the promise of $1 million for the last contestant remaining on Pulau Tiga off Malaysia's Borneo coast.

The group is whittled down by secret ballot, with members voting every three days to expel a fellow contestant. When the final two contestants are left, those most recently voted out of the game will decide who ends up the winner.

Contestants will discover why they were blackballed when the 13-episode series airs.

"Expedition Robinson," which airs on Swedish public broadcaster SVT, began filming June 1, 1997, in Malaysia, with Sinisa Savija the first one kicked out by his team.

"He became deeply depressed and agonized. He felt degraded as a person and didn't see any meaning with life," his widow, Nermina Savija, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet at the time. He worried about having to wait to see his failure on the air, she said.

"He was a glad and stable person when he went away, and when he came back he told me, `They are going to cut away the good things I did and make me look like a fool, only to show I was the worst, and that I was the one that had to go,' " Savija said.

"It's not a game when you choose ordinary people and put them under great pressure, constantly in front of the camera," she said from Norrkoping, Sweden, where Savija jumped in front of a train July 11, 1997.

Savija appealed to SVT to pull the series after her husband's death; instead, footage of him was largely edited out of the program.

"He was aware of the conditions," Pia Marquard, the then-head of SVT's entertainment division said in 1997. "When you enter something like this, you have to take some personal responsibility, too."

"Survivor" contestants will be scrutinized by medical professionals throughout their participation, CBS' Ender said.

"The safety of the participants will be paramount," he said. "All the contestants will have background checks, medical screenings and psychological evaluations. We will make sure everybody headed for Malaysia is ready for the experience."