They All Want to Be Regis

There was the older gentleman from Lawndale who sang opera and tried to tap dance on the carpet, and a young woman in a midriff top who talked about seeing live butterflies pinned to her bedroom walls.

There was the Anaheim woman who listed face painting as one of her best skills and grinned so hard it looked painful. A man, resplendent in a blazing bright blue suit with a pink and red tie, heartily declared that life “is like a game of Yahtzee!”

Each had 60 seconds Monday to show their stuff, vying to be one of a dozen or so chosen to host the upcoming “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” game show at Disney’s California Adventure theme park.

And for the five judges at a Century City hotel, a minute was all it took.

The butterfly lady? Cut. Opera-tap dance guy? Also a no-go. But grinning woman and Yahtzee man will be back for a second audition today.

“You know it when you see it,” said Megan Bywater, a casting director for Disney Entertainment Productions. “And you usually know it within the first few seconds.”

The game show attraction, scheduled to open next month, is one of several attempts by Disney this summer to boost attendance at California Adventure. The game, which has been a hit at Walt Disney World in Orlando, is played on a replica of the famous high-tech TV set replete with lighting, music and a “hot seat” for contestants. Instead of money, visitors play for points, winning prizes such as pins, hats and shirts. The prize for scoring 1 million points is a trip to New York City to see a taping of the real show.

Few of the roughly 100 aspiring actors who auditioned Monday had visited the new park, but most were regarding the Regis Philbin role as the break they’ve been waiting for. If chosen, they could host up to six shows a day, before an audience of 600 at each show, for $172.

“You don’t take acting gigs like this for the money,” explained Jenifer Masters, 21, who is majoring in theater at UCLA. “You take them for where they will ultimately take you. Disney’s big, right? Well, this could be huge.”