The Heart Of Show Business With Alexia Melocchi
Step into the bold and unfiltered world of show business with Alexia Melocchi—PGA producer, international distributor, author, and 30-year Hollywood insider.
This is your backstage pass to the mindset, tactics, and truth behind how Hollywood really works. Through raw and inspiring conversations with A-list creators, business leaders, and global thought shapers, you'll discover the real strategies that lead to lasting success—on and off the screen.
From insider tips to soulful storytelling, each episode is a masterclass in making your mark—not just in showbiz, but in every area of life.
The Heart Of Show Business With Alexia Melocchi
Faith in Hollywood with Dr. Ted Baehr
What happens when faith meets the film industry? Dr. Ted Baehr, founder of MovieGuide magazine reveals the surprising economic power of values-based entertainment in this eye-opening conversation.
From growing up as the son of a movie star who appeared in 62 films to before his own spiritual transformation, Dr. Baehr shares his remarkable journey. After experiencing a profound change through reading the Bible "just to prove it was wrong," he dedicated his life to elevating storytelling standards through a lens of faith, family, and values.
The most surprising revelation? Faith-friendly films aren't just moral entertainment—they're financial powerhouses. Dr. Baehr's economic analysis shows how movies with positive messages consistently outperform R-rated counterparts at the box office. Case in point: his MovieGuide award nominees include a $2 billion box office hit (Inside Out 2) created by Christian filmmakers who cleverly wove biblical principles into mainstream entertainment.
With penetrating insights about Hollywood's marketing machine (representing 60% of a film's success), Dr. Baehr explains why many faith-based films struggle despite quality content—and how filmmakers can reach the untapped market of 110-120 million weekly churchgoers. His limited-enrollment masterclass teaches industry professionals how to craft compelling stories where "love triumphs over hate" without compromising their values.
Whether you're a filmmaker, industry professional, or simply care about the entertainment your family consumes, this conversation offers rare insider knowledge about navigating the entertainment landscape with your soul intact. Listen now to discover how the light of faith is quietly transforming Hollywood from within.
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https://www.movieguide.org/master-class
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Welcome to the heart of show business. I am your host, alexia Melocchi. I believe in great storytelling and that every successful artist has a deep desire to express something from the heart to create a ripple effect in our society. Emotion and entertainment are closely tied together. Thank you, film and television entrepreneur who came to America as a teenager to pursue my show business dreams. Are you ready for some unfiltered real talk with entertainment visionaries from all over the world? Then let's roll sound and action. So welcome back to another episode of the Heart of Show Business. I'm your host, alexia Malocchi.
Alexia Melocchi:As my guest today, I have someone who has dedicated his life to elevating the standard of storytelling in Hollywood through a lens of faith, of family and values. And what's really interesting, how I actually met IRL, in real life, with this gentleman is I saw him, my eye caught him at the Produced by Conference at Universal Studios. We're both obviously PGA producers and he's been on my wishlist for forever. But when God chooses to put someone in your path, there is no stopping him, and obviously this is a perfect example of faith and playing its little hand on making things happen and also on just knowing that we are in a period of darkness and we are seeking light, and this gentleman really represents everything that is about the light.
Alexia Melocchi:Dr Ted Bear is the founder of the Movie Guide magazine, which is a powerful voice advocating for uplifting and redemptive entertainment. He's also the author of several books I can't even name them, there's too many and he just came out with one new one which he'll talk about in this podcast but he is also the creator of the impactful class how to Succeed in Hollywood Without Losing your Soul, which I think is inspired by his book. So I can't wait to dive into your insights of the evolving entertainment landscape, your mission, the whole thing. Welcome to my show.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Well, it's great to be on your show because when we met I said what's your name? And I said that's a beautiful name, you've got a great name. And then I realized your accent is better than your name. So I'm impressed. You should see me in Hollywood because you've got all the things they need to succeed and I've been in the industry 76 years Wow. My father starred in 62 movies between 1926 and World War II and then after World War II, he starred on Broadway from 1946 to 86. So he starred in some of the biggest plays, some of the biggest. He won the box office award in 1936. So there you go.
Alexia Melocchi:That's incredible, and what I also love about it is you'll have a business with your son and I also have a business with my mom, who's my business partner, and she's she kicks booty, as they say, and, and you know, she taught me everything that I learn in the business, especially values and staying true to yourself, and so it's really special to have you, because I'm really curious I mean, you're really the OG innovators in young people's terms because you started the movie guide and I'd love to know what was your personal conviction that guided you to launch this into the world.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Yeah, Well, I grew up in the industry, as you know. Yeah, I died when I, just one month into my 14th year. I was not a Christian. My parents were stars. They were not Christians. They did everything else and I've just a book about my father. So when my mother died, I went off the deep end. I tried a lot of self-destructive behavior, a lot of drugs which were easy to get in Hollywood in the 60s, and Peter Fonda was one of my suppliers. Oh, I know Peter, god bless him.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Yeah, those days, you know it was the big deal and too many, and some of my friends from all that died and some of my friends never recovered that died and some of my friends never recovered their brains, which you probably know. And then you know, I did a lot of salacious and I'm not going to define salacious, but finally, my father was extremely handsome which is why he was in movies after 1929, and a woman got interested in him, but she had just come to Christ through Billy Graham, so she took him to Christian events. She had to, you know, she had to make him a Christian before she could date him and he'd take me to protect him and I'd say these people are crazy. And then I became one and knew they were crazy and I didn't want to go to these. I'd walk out of the event. She said, finally, read the Bible, tell me what's wrong with it. I'd gone to Dartmouth and Cambridge and University of Bordeaux and Toulouse and University of Munich and Cambridge University and I just said, okay, I'll read it just to prove that it's wrong. And I read it and it proved that I was wrong. The Bible convicted me.
Dr. Ted Baehr:So I changed and I went to a mainline cemetery. Oh, they call it a seminary. It's not a cemetery, it's a seminary where they teach people. Uh, cause I needed to know about the Bible in New York and they own the rights to the Chronicles of Narnia C next week, and because I was asked to do the movie they'd been trying to make since CS Lewis gave him the rights the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and we did it on CBS. We won an Emmy Award, we had 37 million viewers and I grew up with a man, my father, who was getting awards and I didn't want to get awards. I said how can I redeem the media? I had funded five very sleazy films. One was Oliver Stone's first film. Don't look it up because it's no good so.
Dr. Ted Baehr:I mean no moral is not good, and Oliver, I don't think he's changed, but anyway, oh, he has not yeah.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Dinner with his best friend on Friday. But I, you know, I just said how do we influence the industry? So I found out about the old church film office. It used to be a Jewish Defense League, the Catholic Defense League, the Protestant Film Office, and I inherited all the files from one of them. They had cleaned up Hollywood during the 30s.
Dr. Ted Baehr:From 1933 to 66, Hollywood was 100% films that you could take your kids to, and then in 1965, they shut down the Protestant Film Commission and the head of Paramount Pictures, sam Ingalls, said if you take the salt from the meat, the meat's going to rot. Well, within three years 1965 to 1968, it went from 100% sound of music greatest story ever told, you know family films to 82% R-rated the first sex and Satanism film. And that's because the church left Hollywood. Hollywood did not leave the church. The church is called to be what you're doing. What you're doing is so good as salt and light. We're supposed to be there doing the good, the true and the beautiful, not bashing.
Dr. Ted Baehr:So they I learned what they did. They showed Hollywood how to make more money. We show people how to make more money we have. We do an economic analysis of the box office. We look at every movie in terms of all these 150 criteria. We show what makes more money and we do this big gala that you're going to be invited to to be on the red carpet. And last year, of our nominees, one of them made $2 billion at the box office. He's a good friend of ours. He came up to me and said you know, I'm a person, I'm a Christian, the director's a Christian, the writer's a Christian. It was inside out too. And then the second movie made a billion dollars. Meanwhile, that other award ceremony, the Academy Awards, their biggest movie had only made by a pornographer, it was pure pornography and it was his third pornographic film and it only made $32 million. So we use the good, we help producers. I just went to lunch today with Neil McDonough.
Alexia Melocchi:I love Neil and his wife Rubé. They're such wonderful people. I've known them forever. Yes. And he does a lot of angel studios.
Dr. Ted Baehr:I reach people and then in my office, another person you know, adam Anders, yes, so you know we do this all the time and we, like with Neil, I was showing him how to reach a bigger audience and cultivate the church and how to cultivate. You know different groups that can help him because their marketing budget is so small. You know, I had lunch a couple of weeks ago with the former head of Sony and I've always told my class marketing is 60 percent. Most people in Hollywood and they think that marketing is nothing. They think about the script and the movie, which is very important, but most of the movie success. You can have a great movie like neil's last movie, the last rodeo yeah, yeah they only spent like eight million dollars of marketing.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Well, can I use this example? He's from boston. Let's say you want to buy an ad on Friday in the Boston Globe. That's $200,000, $300,000. Saturday $300,000. Sunday $300,000. That's $900,000. You want to buy the radio stations, the TV stations? You're now investing $3 million in Boston when a Hollywood film opens in 5,500 theaters.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Now his film, because I love Angel, but it only reached 1,500 theaters. But 1,500 times 3 million for major markets. You know that's a $60 million budget. You wonder why Hollywood films are $200 million and why their budget. So if you're going to compete with Hollywood films, you've got to have a tremendous budget in marketing. You've got to be able to. People have to know the film is out there and he was telling me that you know he does podcasts and things like this and people didn't know about the film. Well, if you don't know about the film, you're not going to go to the film. So I teach people how to make the film. I teach people how to succeed, how to write the script, how to, but, the most important, I teach the business of Hollywood. Hollywood is a business.
Dr. Ted Baehr:It's not just so, I'm going to get a copy of your book. We're going to look at it.
Alexia Melocchi:I'm going to help you and to reach more people with your book. Oh, I love that. Thank you so much. No, you're absolutely right, it's not show friends, it is show business, although it is better when you work with your friends, that's, that's a given. But I love what you said about you know, the marketing issue, and I'm wondering, because everything is about influencers today, everything is about social media, and I think if there were more Christians or more family oriented talent that would use the social media more, we might have a better chance to push the right material through, because that's faith.
Alexia Melocchi:The word faith used to be almost like a no-no to even mention it. And I find it fascinating what you just said, because when before we used to say, oh, that's just a Christian of faith movie, it's just the Bible, people are going to go and see it and if they don't do their homework, they're not going to know that it's not just about the people who read scripture, it's about people who want to teach their children and their grandchildren family values. You know what's it like to you know to have a solid, good marriage or to raise your children, the right way to pray, whatever it is you want to pray on, it doesn't really matter and I think that faith was given a bad name in Hollywood. And, like you said, I'm glad that now, with things changing I don't want to be political about it, but things changing there is an opening. But I think ultimately Hollywood looks at box office and looks at the money and that's where everything is led.
Dr. Ted Baehr:We showed them how to make the money.
Alexia Melocchi:Exactly.
Dr. Ted Baehr:One of the things that shows them how to make the money is you know, we reach 69 million people and most of them are young mothers between 30 and 50. They've got young children. They're exactly what you just defined. They want to protect their children, so they come to movieguideorg. I have a friend who's one of the heads of one of the big companies and he said that his movie got mediocre reviews from Variety and LA Times and we gave it a great review because it was a family film. It was a fun family film with good values and faith in it and it made 400 million in the first two weeks. Because it's 69 million people at $10 a ticket. That's $690 million. All those people want movies and every week which we show Hollywood. Hollywood makes movies for different people group. My wife was Argentine, so they make movies for she passed three years ago. They make movies for Spanish speaking people, Not for Argentines, because they speak a little bit different.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Latin yeah, they make movies for African-Americans, they make movies for Koreans and we just said look, every week about 110 to 120 million people go to church and only about 7 or 8 million people go to movies, so 10 times more people. Church, this is a marketplace and when I did A Lion in the witch in the wardrobe, we reached 37 million people because we reached that big church audience and that was back. You know, at the time the country was only 170 million people. Today it's 360 million people. So we've just taught them this is another audience. Let's make movies for this audience. We're making a Korean off and we can reach this audience and the young mothers are happy about it because they keep coming to Movie Guy.
Alexia Melocchi:Yes, yes, absolutely. And you know there is an organization that approached me at some time called Kids First. I don't know if you heard about it, but basically what they do is they actually ask you to see the movies before they come out and they let the children see it. They have a curated group of kids so that the kids can see if they understand what this movie is about and if they're giving it the rating and to the things that falls into what children are going to look like.
Alexia Melocchi:And I think we need more people like that, and that's why I was really fascinated by your course, because you know how to succeed in Hollywood without a soul, right, without losing a soul, not without a soul. You have to have a soul without losing a soul, and we all know that Hollywood tends to. Whether you want it or not, maybe out of desperation, maybe out of struggle, maybe out of hanging out with the wrong people, it does corrupt filmmakers and I would love to know how do you teach them or show them the way to stay true to their values, their faith and their integrity while building a sustainable career? What advice would you give them and what would you tell them to avoid? I know it's a long question.
Dr. Ted Baehr:We do. I used to be head of a department at Berkeley and head of a department at City University of New York, so I've had big classes. When I spoke in the Philippines there were 60,000 people. You speak in America, you got, but we only limit the class now to six to eight people and we get some people that are very prominent One person who owned part of Great American Family Channel, another person was on the board of the biggest broadcasting company. And we teach them how to reach people, and we do.
Dr. Ted Baehr:First thing is the message is to help them understand the message that the message should be that love triumphs over hate and envy and et cetera, and how to construct that message so that it's going to be extremely powerful. Or, for instance, you know my friend who did Inside Out 2. Inside Out 2, the message is joy of the Lord is our strength. He said we were the only one who understood the message. You probably did too, but we reached a lot of people.
Dr. Ted Baehr:So in the beginning, riley joy is running her character traits. They're not psychological traits, because they don't fit the cycle. They're biblical traits Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith and all that stuff. So she's running the show and then anxiety comes in and takes over. Riley goes nuts, she gets mean to her friends, she gets selfish, she gets, et cetera, and Joy is driven out to the edge of her universe where finally, in her character traits, joy prays, she gets back in, she gets anxiety under control, riley, once she's back into joy because the joy of the Lord is our strength then she apologizes to her friends, she repents and she turns around. So really it's a biblical allegory and people know that and they can understand that. So I teach people how to make that and I teach people how to do the other aspects of the production and to make sure that carries through. So it responds to that big audience, which is the 10 times more that go to church every week than go to movies.
Alexia Melocchi:Yeah, absolutely. And you know what. I love what you just said as an example with Inside Out too, because people think, you know, I come from global distribution. That's where I started with my own sales agency and I sold 50 plus movies to profit with my mom. You know, my first can was at the age of 19.
Alexia Melocchi:And one of the things that people don't understand is the thinking oh, this is going to alienate the international market, to say about a faith film that doesn't really mean anything. Like you said, it's about telling the right story and about stories about values. Because if you look at Christianity, I mean there are rules. I'm sure you've heard about them. For example, you know if you release a film in South Africa and you show somebody drinking, that's not going to fly, you know if you're doing it, even if it's a Christian movie. If you're doing something in Brazil, you have to have at least one quote from the scripture. So every territory has its own little check marks of things that you need to release. But ultimately, if you can disguise it properly, just like you did or like what you said, is an example of you know, of inside out, you know it's, it's, it's, it's.
Dr. Ted Baehr:God's work, you know, Weave it into the plot. You don't have to disguise it, but you have to make it clear that it's woven into the storyline. Exactly. A friend of mine I was laughing at what you were saying because a friend of mine won our award, our Epiphany Prizes, for movies with strong Christian content. He emailed me this week. He's got another movie he's doing, but he said after the awards he said you know, how did you recognize this? When I wanted to get money from Germany, they said that I had to have a gunfight. When I wanted money from Rome, from Italy, they said I had to have a shot of the Vatican. When I wanted money in Paris, they said I had to have a love scene. When I wanted to get money from england.
Dr. Ted Baehr:They said I had to have a shot of parliament. He said I had to do so many things for each country to get money out of him. I didn't think anybody could recognize the story anymore. So I'll put it in. Because you've got that beautiful picture of cam behind you, because you've got somebody financing you who's saying if you want to do it in brazil, you've got to do this, and if you want to do it in Brazil, you've got to do this and if you want to do it in South.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Africa, where I shot more films you've got to do this.
Alexia Melocchi:So yeah, I'm actually curious, because you just talked about Italy and I just remembered about Cabrini. I'm sure you've seen the film and I wonder why. Why do you think it tanked? Because it was an amazing story. And I'm actually even surprised that my Italian community or my Italian Americans did not show up at the theaters as much as they should have, because it's still an immigration story.
Dr. Ted Baehr:I can explain that to you.
Alexia Melocchi:Yeah, please.
Dr. Ted Baehr:The guy who funded it is a good friend of mine and he's funded a lot of other movies. Bella was his first movie because he funds, you know, alejandro and our friends there who made him. Yeah, and I think cabrini is a beautifully done film, well done, uh. But again, it was done with a studio that I like, so I don't want to mention the name. Yeah, I know people behind it, but they only put eight million dollars.
Dr. Ted Baehr:$8 million in marketing cannot reach the American people. We got 360 million people. People didn't know about it and that's why it didn't do well. And I kept telling him you got to do better. In fact, he then went to Europe to try to make deals in Italy and he went over to India and tried to make deals. I said, you know, I can introduce you to the person who was the head of distribution in India, who's a Christian. I can introduce you to the person in Italy. A friend of mine took the movie Luther. Imagine this it bombed in the United States because they didn't understand distribution. He got it into Germany. He goes toes every year who is that?
Alexia Melocchi:I want to know, if I know him we're not gonna name names this time.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Okay, we'll say that over lunch 90 million dollars in Cannes and it made over 90 million dollars in Italy. I said how did you do that with Luther? It's, it's anti-Catholic anyway, anyway. So there's a market there. There is. You have to know who to talk to and how to reach that market, and I was doing that today with people that were here trying to show them how to reach that market. Anyway, I'm going to show you the book.
Alexia Melocchi:Yes, please Show me about your next book. I love how you lead the conversation Blatant promotion yes, please, please go. If you don't want to take his classes because you don't have the time, just buy the book and it will at least be a good lead the other one, and here's the next one. What's the next one about?
Dr. Ted Baehr:hollywood. That's my father. He starred in 62 movies. His pictures are on the front. The head of Sony got me the pictures and the rights to use them at no cost, which is good, because it's hard to sell books. So go buy. You know the behind the scenes, the golden age of Hollywood and Broadway, if you want to find out what succeeds, and the story of Robert Allen, who was my father. His real name was Ted Bear, but when he signed his contract in 1929 at Warner Brothers, they had Robert Allen because the studios used to give you a name. You know that they would have not have left you with Alexio because they own the name. So once they had your contract, then Warner Brothers would lend them out to Columbia Pictures or MGM or someplace else. Lend them out to Columbia Pictures or MGM or someplace else. It's a fascinating story because most people don't. If you don't understand the history, it's going to be harder for you to succeed in the present. So it's fascinating and it's good and it helps you understand how to succeed now.
Alexia Melocchi:This is amazing and, of course, we're going to drop all the links in our story notes and our YouTube, because we're on YouTube, we're everywhere. So we'll be dropping the links because you know, speaking of my name, my name, the origin of my name is I love your name.
Alexia Melocchi:Thank you, I said to you yeah it's half Greek, because my mother is Greek and it's Alexia, or Alexios is a defender of God. That's literally like what it means and I'm doing my part with this podcast and with the movies that I'm trying to make. I feel I'm doing my part. I want to touch a personal note and, and you know, you just said to me that your wife recently passed and and I'm really sorry to hear that and we all, we all live moments of darkness. You know, whether we like it or not, it's part of life, whether it's we're losing a loved one or there is a world that is going berserk right now. When the going gets tough, is there a passage of scripture, a life lesson, some book or something that you hold on to to keep you grounded and inspired?
Dr. Ted Baehr:something that you hold on to to keep you grounded and inspired. Oh, there are a lot of them and I go through them every morning. So you know, she was on chemotherapy for 26 years for cicatricep infarct, which removes the mucus lining in your body, and every child we had we had four and I have 18 grandchildren was a miracle, because the doctor said you're not going to have a child because the mucus lining is important for a woman, and I'm not going to go into detail because I just went into too much detail but she was supposed to live four to six years. So to live 26 years every day was a miracle.
Dr. Ted Baehr:So if you want to quote one passage of scripture, it's Isaiah 53, 4 and 5,. Yet he himself bore our sickness and he carried our pains. But we in turn regard him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our transgressions, cross-crossed, our iniquities. We are healed by his wounds. So we are healed by his wounds, not our actions, not our words, not our deeds. And God loves us so much that he gave his only begotten son that should not perish.
Dr. Ted Baehr:And then John, 10, 10, and he guarantees us a more abundant life. So there you go.
Alexia Melocchi:I love that. That is such a beautiful, beautiful ending to our podcast. I could have you here for hours, but I'm sure you're a very busy man and let's do it again we have to do it again and honestly, I something.
Alexia Melocchi:Yeah, we'll find something. Well, I have to have lunch. I'm accepting kindly your invitation to lunch and I'm going to see you. I'm not recording this right now. This will be added out. But yeah, and I really wanted to thank you for sharing all your wisdom, your purpose, your deep love for meaningful storytelling, because that is so important, and I think that your voice is a guiding light no wonder you are a very sought after speaker as well and that you teach and then you impart your knowledge. Please keep on doing that. I know you're going to be around for a long, long time because you're surrounded by love and by family and by God, and I look forward to promoting your book and I'll be sending you all my little clips and everything for you to promote Anyone who's listened to this episode.
Alexia Melocchi:Please look this incredible human you know son of God up. Look up movie guy. Check out movie guy before you see a movie, cause you never know you want to. Maybe you might find something that you know marketing did not make. Do their job, and then you'll go. I missed that movie. I should have seen that. So please check out movie guide. Follow the website, subscribe to the newsletter. If you like this podcast, please review, share with your friends. I don't have any sponsors. I do it for the love and thank you, dr Bayer, for being here and thank you for coming on my show.
Dr. Ted Baehr:Thank you for being a blessing and I love the show. God bless you.
Alexia Melocchi:Thank you so much, everyone over and out, as they say in Italy ciao. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Heart of Show Business. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can also subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcast player. If you have any questions or comments or feedback for us, you can reach me directly at theheartofshowbusinesscom.