Meet the oil industry's newest high-profile 'villain'

Describing himself as the "puppet master" for the show's private "diary" cameras, Hantz secretly told the TV audience last week he plans to make all of his competing castmates "miserable" and get them fighting amongst themselves. Survivor fan blogs have moved quickly to dub him as potentially the "baddest" villain the show has seen in its 10-year, 19-season run.

For those unfamiliar with the format, Survivor is a reality show that recruits players from various walks of life, divides them into teams known as tribes, maroons them in exotic-but-deserted locales and then films them as they maneuver to eliminate each other from the show. Each week features a contest emphasizing physical and mental skills, then ends with a climactic tribal council where the losing team eliminates one member of the tribe with a vote. That process repeats each week until three are left to face a vote by a jury of their exiled peers to determine the ultimate survivor. Psychologists have studied the dynamics of Survivor, comparing the gamesmanship to that seen in an office environment complete with backstabbing, gossiping, secret alliances, mentoring, ladder climbing and, of course, brown-nosing. At the same time audiences have followed in record numbers in unpsychological fashion simply to watch people like Hantz turn group dynamics into a train wreck.

He started with a flare, too, last week, earning the sympathy of his tribemates at Foa Foa by introducing himself facetiously as a former New Orleans firefighter who had watched his trusty dog, Rocky, drown during Hurricane Katrina. One female castmate was crying while he laughed for the diary camera visible only to the audience: "I'm really a multi-millionaire and I'm just here to show these morons how it's done."

After his tribemates fell asleep the first night, Hantz rose in the dark, dumped their water canteens and then burned their socks in the campfire. As they argued with each other the next morning over the vandalism, Hantz further explained his strategy for creating a secret alliance of "dumb girls." He invited four of the females to join him in voting as a block, telling each: "Stay with me, and you'll be in this for a long time." He told the cameras, "I call it my dumb girl alliance." But then, after the Foa Foa tribe lost Thursday night's contest, Hantz persuaded his tribemates to instead eliminate one of his girls because she had hinted she didn't trust him. The Survivor narrator promised in previews for this week that "Russell goes on the warpath."

When he's not cavorting on Samoa as Survivor's latest villain, Hantz runs the oil tankering business he started with a brother and their father three years ago. He is married with four children. And his family is quick to emphasize that on Survivor he is just playing a game.