Earlier this year, Towers Productions was looking for unique Chicago women for a proposed reality TV series. In the process, they met Leslie Forrester, who embodied the qualities they sought ? but for a different show, as it turned out.
That show, “Plastic Royalty,” with registered nurse Forrester and her famous cosmetic surgeon father, Dr. Leon Forrester Tcheupdjian, bows Sept. 5 on NBC/Ch. 5.
Meeting Forrester, says Becky Cattie, Towers’ reality show casting director, “led to exploring the doctor’s world of plastic surgery and finding it had all the elements of a good show.”
Those elements, she says, “are the glitzy, fun world of Chicago’s Gold Coast, where the Tcheupdjians’ family business is located, where they live a few blocks from each other and where their after-hours upscale socializing takes place.
The title derives from Dr. Tcheupdjian self-proclaimed title of “King of Lipo” and Forrester’s renown as “Queen of Lips.” She jokes that she’s injected more faces in a month than some doctors twice her age do in a lifetime.
“I think a lot of people have the wrong impression about who our patients are,” says Forrester. “Our typical clients are soccer moms, working people, your friend down the street. Cosmetic surgery is for everybody, and we want to show that you don’t have to be rich to feel good about yourself.”
