40 Fun Facts About Charles Van Doren and the Quiz Show Scandals

By his own account, which household item did quiz champion Charles Van Doren not even own in 1956?

A TV set was missing from his home when the idea of a quiz came up, he wrote in 2008. He knew producer Albert Freedman only through a mutual friend.

Which British actor played Charles Van Doren in the 1994 film Quiz Show after no American fitted the part?

Ralph Fiennes drove to Van Doren's home before filming and posed as a lost motorist, a short chat he later called crucial for catching the man's accent.

Which Best Picture winner was Herb Stempel ordered to get wrong during his match with Charles Van Doren?

Marty was one of Stempel's favourite films, which made the scripted miss sting. He was told to name On the Waterfront, the previous year's winner, instead.

Which lower-stakes quiz, launched in 1964, is credited with easing the stigma left by the rigging scandals?

Jeopardy won viewers back with clues a typical person at home could answer. The biggest winner of its original NBC run took home only about $11,000.

The scoring on the quiz that made Charles Van Doren famous was loosely based on which card game?

Blackjack gave Twenty-One its target of 21 points. Contestants chose questions worth 1 to 11, and a wrong answer cost them the same number.

Which encyclopedia hired the disgraced Charles Van Doren after the scandal and employed him until he retired in 1982?

Britannica made him a vice-president, and he worked there with philosopher Mortimer Adler on projects such as the multi-volume Annals of America.

Which Hollywood star directed the 1994 film Quiz Show, having watched Twenty-One as a young acting student?

Robert Redford was in his early twenties, taking art and acting classes in New York, when he saw Charles Van Doren win. He recalled never doubting it was real.

Which iron-and-vitamin tonic sponsored Twenty-One and complained after the quiz's dull, unrigged first broadcast?

Geritol's maker was reportedly furious after an opening night of missed questions. Producer Dan Enright dated the decision to rig the game from that complaint.

Which American news magazine put quiz champion Charles Van Doren on its cover in February 1957?

Time gave him its cover on February 11, 1957, at the height of his fame. A month later he lost on air and left Twenty-One with $129,000.

What could the producers of Twenty-One switch off inside a contestant's booth to raise the tension on screen?

The air conditioning could be cut so that a contestant visibly sweated. Players were even told when to mop their brows, like actors following a script.

NBC gave Charles Van Doren a regular spot on which of its programmes, where he once filled in as host?

Today took him on after his short cultural pieces for a Sunday programme impressed presenter Dave Garroway, and Van Doren stood in when Garroway went on holiday.

In which magazine did Charles Van Doren finally publish his own account of the scandal in 2008?

The New Yorker ran his memoir, All the Answers, nearly half a century after his confession. He had spent the decades in between turning interviewers away.

Mark Van Doren, father of quiz champion Charles Van Doren, won a 1940 Pulitzer Prize in which category?

Poetry brought him the prize, for his Collected Poems, one year after his elder brother Carl had won a Pulitzer of his own.

Carl Van Doren, uncle of quiz champion Charles Van Doren, won a Pulitzer Prize for a biography of which American?

Benjamin Franklin was the subject, and the book took the 1939 prize. Carl had also gone ahead of his brother Mark and his nephew onto the Columbia faculty.

What was the profession of Vivienne Nearing, who ended Charles Van Doren's reign on Twenty-One in March 1957?

A lawyer by profession, Nearing was married to a contestant Van Doren had already beaten. Their own games ended in ties for several weeks before she won.

What proof of rigging did Twenty-One contestant James Snodgrass give investigators, backing Herb Stempel's claims?

Letters mailed to himself by registered post listed every answer he had been coached on. Their postal dates, all from before the broadcasts, made the proof indisputable.

Charles Van Doren read his confession of cheating in November 1959 to which body?

A House subcommittee on legislative oversight, chaired by Oren Harris of Arkansas, heard him admit that he had been given questions and answers in advance.

Which US president signed the law that made it illegal to rig a televised quiz?

Dwight Eisenhower signed it in September 1960, after Congress amended the Communications Act. Until then, fixing a quiz had broken no law at all.

What did a standby contestant find backstage at the CBS quiz Dotto in 1958, leading to its sudden cancellation?

A notebook of answers meant for the reigning champion turned up backstage. Once the find reached regulators, Herb Stempel's ignored claims about Twenty-One suddenly looked credible.

Which actor gained 25 pounds to play Herb Stempel, Charles Van Doren's rival, in the film Quiz Show?

John Turturro also altered his voice to mimic Stempel's. The real Van Doren, no admirer of the film's liberties, said he enjoyed the portrayal.

Which English actor earned an Oscar nomination for playing Mark Van Doren, Charles's father, in the film Quiz Show?

Paul Scofield drew the film's only acting nomination. One critic called it his best screen work since A Man for All Seasons, which had won him an Oscar.

The film Quiz Show was adapted from a memoir by which congressional investigator, later a Kennedy speechwriter?

Richard Goodwin told the story in a chapter of Remembering America and co-produced the film. The prosecutor who began the inquiry complained that it inflated his role.

Which celebrated film director acts in Quiz Show, playing the head of the company that sponsored Twenty-One?

Martin Scorsese was cast partly for his rapid-fire way of talking, which the film's maker thought would turn a gently played tough character into a menacing one.

Which longtime voice actor on The Simpsons plays producer Albert Freedman in the film Quiz Show?

Hank Azaria plays the man who coached Charles Van Doren. The real Freedman was the first person indicted in the scandal and later moved to London.

Quiz Show was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar but lost to which 1994 box-office hit?

Forrest Gump won six Oscars that night, while Quiz Show went home with none of the four it was up for.

Which claim in the closing titles of Quiz Show did Charles Van Doren say bothered him most?

The line that he never taught again was simply wrong, he wrote: he had gone on teaching, though it was a long while before he did so in a college.

How did Charles Van Doren respond when offered $100,000 to consult on the 1994 film Quiz Show?

He turned it down after talking it over with his family, most of whom opposed taking part. Herb Stempel, by contrast, signed on as a consultant.

During Charles Van Doren's winning run, Twenty-One at one point beat which CBS sitcom in the ratings?

I Love Lucy was overtaken as his run drew more viewers week after week. When it ended, NBC signed him to a three-year contract worth $150,000.

Who hosted Twenty-One during Charles Van Doren's run and also co-owned the company that produced the quiz?

Jack Barry was kept off national screens for more than a decade by the scandal, then came back in the 1970s as host and producer of The Joker's Wild.

Which cosmetics company sponsored The $64,000 Question, the CBS hit also caught up in the rigging scandals?

Revlon was run by Charles Revson, whose personality the film Quiz Show gave to its fictional sponsor, a character renamed for legal reasons.

Which charge did Charles Van Doren plead guilty to in 1962, after his confession to Congress?

Perjury was the charge because he had denied any coaching when a New York grand jury questioned him. Like the other contestants who admitted it, he drew a suspended sentence.

Herb Stempel, the Twenty-One champion Charles Van Doren dethroned, was a G.I. Bill student at which New York school?

City College was where Stempel enrolled after years in the Army. He asked to play Van Doren fairly, pitching the match as his school against Columbia, and was refused.

Charles Van Doren took his bachelor's degree at which Annapolis school, known for its great books curriculum?

St. John's College builds its whole degree on reading classic works, an approach his father had championed in a 1943 book on liberal education.

Which 1991 book by Charles Van Doren surveys some 5,000 years of human thought in a single volume?

A History of Knowledge may be his best-known book, and it closes with a chapter looking ahead to what the 21st century might bring.

Charles Van Doren co-wrote the 1972 revision of which guide by the philosopher Mortimer Adler?

How to Read a Book first appeared in 1940. The two men's heavily revised edition added advice on reading different genres, from history to science.

In which state did Charles Van Doren spend his final years, on land his parents had bought in the 1920s?

Connecticut was home for his last years. He and his wife Gerry lived in a small, old house in Cornwall, the town his father had retired to in 1959.

Which science did Charles Van Doren study as a Columbia graduate student before he turned to English?

Astrophysics came first for him at Columbia. He later changed fields and took a doctorate in English, the subject he was teaching when the quiz found him.

By Charles Van Doren's own testimony, which argument from a Twenty-One producer persuaded him to accept help?

It would promote learning, he was told: a winning young teacher would raise public respect for education. He told Congress he had instead done teachers a disservice.

After Charles Van Doren's 1959 confession, what did committee member Steven Derounian pointedly refuse to do?

Derounian would not commend him for honesty as his colleagues had, saying an adult of such intelligence deserved no praise for telling the truth. Van Doren winced and ducked his head.

Producer Albert Freedman first sounded out Charles Van Doren by asking his opinion of which other quiz?

Tic-Tac-Dough came from the same producers as Twenty-One. They coached its contestants in the same way, and it too was cancelled once the rigging came out.