(Lawrence Schwartzwald/Splashnews)
What’s the one thing most people say upon first meeting Joanna Philbin, the 37-year-old daughter of television’s most amiable host, Regis Philbin?
“ ‘Wow, you’re so normal,’ ” she says.
“Like, was I not supposed to be normal? What was I supposed to be? Yes, my dad has an unusual job, but I’m me. It’s something I grew up with, that feeling, like, I think I just disappointed someone, but I’m not sure why!”
What she grew up with, in fact, was so unique, she’s written a three-book series for young adults based on her experiences, called “The Daughters,” out May 5 from Little, Brown’s Poppy imprint. The series focuses on three 14-year-old best friends, Lizzie, Carina and Hudson, who are raised in New York City — each with a famous parent (a supermodel, a billionaire and a pop star, respectively). Like the cover tag line reads, “They didn’t ask for fame. They were born with it.”
And the life Philbin lived growing up sets the stage.
Born in Los Angeles, Philbin moved with her family to the Upper East Side at age 10. (Joanna has one younger sister, Jennifer, and two older stepsiblings, Amy and Daniel.) From there, Philbin lived a privileged life: She attended PS 6 and the Convent of the Sacred Heart (otherwise known as Lady Gaga’s high school) and appeared on television with her dad throughout her childhood — including a mortifying on-air interview she conducted with New Kids on the Block when she was 16. Yet she had no nannies, no chef, no more allowance than her friends, no “Gossip Girl” catwalks or catfights.
Philbin ate lunches at Jackson Hole on 91st and Madison (“which was, like, our school cafeteria”) and spent afternoons at Serendipity (“of course a favorite after school when I was 12 to 14”) and Pizzeria Uno on 81st and Columbus. She shopped at Bloomingdale’s, at Benetton on 84th and Madison, Betsey Johnson on 80th and Madison, and Agnes B. “And Fiorucci!” she says. “We got our black rubber Madonna bracelets there.”
She also spent afternoons sitting on the steps at the Met and in the Meadow in Central Park. (“The boys from Browning would meet us there after school. We’d fly kites and flirt and get our hearts broken.”) Although Drake’s Drum on Second Avenue between 84th and 85th is no longer there, she says, “Everyone went there because they didn’t card, but I was still terrified to order a glass of wine when I was 18.”
So how is it she didn’t go down the road of a red-carpet-walking, banquette-dancing, reality show-starring daughter that some celebrity daughters stride down today?
“For one thing,” says Philbin, “when I was growing up, we didn’t have US Weekly, we didn’t have Perez Hilton. It was a completely different world. And I think I’m lucky in that my dad is a fairly noncontroversial figure.”
Most of the awkwardness she suffered as Regis’ daughter was the kind of thing any normal teen could relate to. Most. “I do remember being a teenager and having to walk into a restaurant or down the street with him, and people were like ‘Regis!’ from the cabs. As a teenager, you just don’t want to be looked at.”
And unlike the main characters of her book, Philbin didn’t have celebrity-daughter friends, although she sees a value in it now.
“It would have been nice to know that someone understood what it felt like when a boy came over to watch a movie and my dad talked about it the next day on his show!”
But then again, other parents aren’t Regis Philbin, who has a tradition, she says, of putting dates and guests in “The Hot Seat” at dinner. “He turns the spotlight and goes, “All right, we’re gonna talk about you now,’ ” she laughs, “and they go pale.”
After high school, Philbin attended Brown University, got her law degree and MFA at Notre Dame, then worked at Seventeen, “The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” Miramax and Redbook before moving to Los Angeles to work as a TV writer on the show “Las Vegas.” When the writers’ strike hit, she found her way back to the idea for “The Daughters” that she’d come up with a decade before. “At the time, I thought, ‘Who cares about the children of famous people?’ ”
The first book’s main character, Lizzie Summers, struggles to get out of the shadow of her supermodel mom in a plot inspired by a newspaper story Philbin read about the Ugly Models agency, which plucks unique-looking New Yorkers from the subway and street.
Philbin had her own personal hurdles. “I think I struggled for a long time with a way to write about things that were important to me that weren’t going to embarrass my dad,” she says. “But if you’re a writer, your life is your material.” Besides, she says, “When your parent is very successful, you don’t want to fail.”
Philbin certainly hasn’t. Now living in Santa Barbara and engaged to photographer Adam Brown, Philbin is continuing work on the series (the second book, “The Daughters Break the Rules,” is due in November).
And while she’s not naming the names of other celebrity daughters she empathizes with, through her book, she stands by these real-life daughters. “I think everyone should be treated like they’re their own person, that they’re not an extension of their parent,” says Philbin. “It’s only fair.”