TV groom's millionaire status a surprise to friends and mother

SAN DIEGO - "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?" captured the attention of 17 million TV viewers this week when 50 women auditioned to marry a stranger, but back in San Diego, people who know the millionaire groom, Rick Rockwell, were howling with laughter and surprise.

"I thought, `That's your millionaire? You've got to be joking,' " said Barbara Summers, the owner of a San Diego-area dating service who has known Rockwell since the early 1990s.

"He's a likable guy and he's funny, but we're all wondering, when did he become a millionaire? How did we miss that?"

Summers and her husband, Bob Horn, invited Rockwell to their wedding in 1995 and recalled that his present was a $25 gift certificate.

"He's known as one of these guys who has 50 cents left from his first communion dollar," said Horn, an Internet consultant and former San Diego Chargers linebacker.

Even Rockwell's mother said she didn't know he was so rich.

Rockwell, 42, is on his Caribbean honeymoon with his new bride, Darva Conger, a 34-year-old nurse and Gulf War veteran from Santa Monica, and couldn't be reached for comment.

Fox TV checked out his finances and confirmed that he's worth "at least $2 million," and had $750,000 in the bank, a spokeswoman said yesterday.

Rockwell, who was born Richard Balkey in Pittsburgh, told Fox he is a real-estate developer.

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, he was a regular on the Southern California comedy-club circuit and appeared on a comedy show on KFMB-TV as a geeky beach bum.

He also performed in a straight-to-video sequel to the movie "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" and was a finalist on the variety show "Star Search," according to Larry Himmel, a friend and reporter for KFMB-TV who cast Rockwell in the local comedy program.

"He was always on the fringe but was never on that level where you get on the `Tonight Show,"' Himmel said.

Fox TV executives said they knew about his entertainment background and chose him in part because he was able to handle himself well on camera.

Rockwell has bought and sold several Southern California properties in recent years. The Union-Tribune reported yesterday that he bought a home in La Jolla in 1993 for $270,000 and sold it last June for $580,000.

His house in Encinitas, outside San Diego, is no mansion - it's one story and 1,200 square feet.

Deborah Quilla, an art director for an advertising agency, said she dated Rockwell's roommate at the La Jolla house about four years ago.

She recalls the house had a great view of the ocean but was spartan inside and outfitted with patio furniture.

"He was real, real stingy about everything," Quilla said.

Rockwell's mother, Joanne Balkey, said she had no idea her son was a millionaire.

"He doesn't live like a flamboyant millionaire," Balkey told the Canadian Press.

"The last car I saw him drive was a Volkswagen."

Most of those interviewed said they are skeptical about Rockwell's motives for appearing on the show, saying it was probably a publicity stunt.

But Rockwell's mother believes he was serious about the whole thing.

"From what he told me before the show," she told the Canadian Press, "he was of an age and ready (to marry) and maybe wanted to have a family."