Half-Korean Ursula Mayes makes a regular appearance on the NBC game show ‘Deal or No Deal’ that airs Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, under the name of Howie. Korean-American Starlet to Visit Korea

A fixture on the hit NBC game show “Deal or no Deal” that airs Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, “Howie” or the half Korean Ursula Mayes (26) has become a hot topic of late. The show was the vehicle that led to her not only being asked to be a cover model but even put her on the list of Hollywood scouts.

Mayes debuted after coming third in a cover model competition at MAXIM magazine. She was chosen as Miss Hot Import Night (HIN) by sports car magazine Modified and was a calendar model for the lesser spotted Muscle and Fitness and Orange Health.

Just like fellow half-Korean stars Hines Ward and Moon Bloodgood, Mayes had the sacrifices of her Korean mother helping her along the way.

Her mother, who is 53 this year, met her future husband while working at the PX on the U.S. Eighth Army base in Yongsan. The two were married in 1978 and then, when Ursula was six, immigrated to Fairfax, Virginia. But when she was 32, her husband died, leaving her to raise the three children on her own. “During the days I worked for eight hours at a restaurant, then at night I worked as a physical therapist and also studied for three hours a day,” Mayes’ mother told the Yonhap news agency at the second National Convention for Interracial Marriage Women. “Our difficulties were too much for words.”

“But then when my daughter started to succeed she gave me purses and wallets of the kind that I had never been able to so much as hold. She also sent me on vacation to Hawaii, so now we are enjoying a life as bright as sunshine.”

Mayes is apparently reluctant to move to Hollywood because many stars use drugs and the environment is not always positive. This is why she has elected to stay in Irvine, Orange County, a two-hour drive away. When she was selected as the winning model, she said she wanted to share the “happiness” with her mother, and when asked who she respected the most, she also nodded her mother’s way.

She says thanks to her mother she could never stray from the path. Her mother says Mayes is getting all kinds of big money offers for jobs including nude modeling, but she will not fall to the “temptations” because her plan is to climb step-by-step toward success and never simply chase after money.

The right man for Mayes doesn’t have to be a star, doctor or lawyer, but he must be sincere. Her goal in life is to build a happy family, but at the same time she does want to make lots of money and do good deeds.

(englishnews@chosun.com )