In new book, KC Star reporter delves into Dr. Phil's life

Turning the pages of a 1968 high school yearbook, Lisa Gutierrez, feature writer for The Kansas City Star, spied a familiar face. Swaying with his sweetheart at the Shawnee Mission North homecoming dance that year was Phil McGraw, now known to TV viewers and self-help aficionados as the famous Dr. Phil.

Gutierrez, j'83, who was investigating a rumor that Dr. Phil had once lived in the Kansas City area, knew she had a story. She didn't know, however, that she also had a book.

Working on a September 2002 assignment for the Star, Gutierrez found that the woman dancing with McGraw in the photo still lived in Kansas City, so she picked up the phone. When Debbie McCall answered, she said, "Oh, you found me. I'm his first wife."

The resulting Star story caught the attention of a California firm. Soon Gutierrez got a call offering her a contract to write Dr. Phil's biography. Next month, "The Making of Dr. Phil: The Straight-Talking True Story of Everyone's Favorite Therapist", will be published by Wiley & Sons.

Gutierrez shares authorship with former Dallas Morning News reporter Sophia Dembling. Through six months of marathon phone calls and daily e-mails the pair finished the project. "I have yet to meet Sophie, but I think she's my new best friend," Gutierrez says. "The startling thing was that our writing styles are so compatible that they're just seamless. You can't tell from chapter to chapter whose voice it is. That's also a tribute to the editing."

Gutierrez focused on McGraw's early life, the first third of the book, while Dembling told the story of his remarkable career. The writing duties divided naturally, because Gutierrez learned in her fateful phone call that McGraw had spent pivotal years in the Kansas City area.

Born in Vinita, Okla., McGraw moved several times during his childhood. He spent his high school years in Kansas City because his father, also a psychologist, moved there for an internship. "Phil was getting into a little trouble in Oklahoma with some friends," Gutierrez says, "so his dad decided to bring him up here to keep an eye on him."

McGraw graduated in 1968 from Shawnee Mission North, where he played on the championship football team. "He sometimes intimates he was a star," Gutierrez says, "but come to find out, not really. He wasn't the most popular boy, and he kept a pretty low profile. A lot of his former classmates were shocked to learn when he attended their 25th reunion that he had gone on to become the guy they saw on 'Oprah.' And this was before he really hit it big."

McGraw and first wife, whose birth name was Debbie Higgins, married after high school and moved to Texas. But they soon moved back to Kansas, where McGraw opened The Grecian Health Spa in 1971 in Topeka. The venture fizzled within two years, as did the marriage.

Gutierrez, who has written features for the Star since 2000, says the book is what's known in the trade as an "unauthorized biography," completed without McGraw's participation.

"He steered clear," she says. "I'm assuming that people around him knew the book was coming out, because there were close family members who refused to talk to me and were very upset.

"But I'm positive and certain that we did the best we could talking to the people who were willing."

In addition to relying on interviews with people from McGraw's past and present, the two authors culled comments from recent interviews the psychologist has granted since he became a household name. All such quotes are meticulously attributed in the book's endnotes, she says. "It is not at all a tabloid story. It is balanced."

Through her research, Gutierrez says, she has come to respect McGraw's intelligence and business savvy. "He's very smart. He got through college quickly and he has lots of expertise in psychology. He's also very hypnotic on stage, where he can control what's being said and hold the audience in the palm of his hand. He's glib. He can talk to anyone."

As a reporter, Gutierrez is more comfortable asking questions than answering them, so her excitement over the book's release is tinged with caution. "I've tried to stay a little clear of the marketing efforts," she says. "I work in newspapers, so all of this—selling yourself—is new to me. I like to keep a low profile."

But with his famous face and name on the book's cover, Dr. Phil may do all the selling for her.