Herb Stempel, the contestant on NBC's 'Twenty-One' who helped expose the rigged television quiz shows of the 1950s after he was 'defeated' by Charles Van Doren, has died at the age of 93
Stempel said he considered pulling a double cross but "took a dive" to Van Doren because Enright had promised him a job as a question consultant for $250 a week onWhen it became clear that Enright would not honor his end of the bargain, Stempel contacted several newspaper reporters and then the Manhattan district attorney, and soon the infamous quiz show scandal was off and running, with Congress getting involved.
When Stempel was 7, his father died and his mother needed public assistance to make ends meet. She received $50 a month, and $28 of that went to pay the rent. "I always felt a little bad that I didn't have a dad, because all my friends did," he said. At an office on Madison Avenue, Stempel took a 3 1/2-hour, 363-question trivia test and came up with a record-setting 251 correct answers, he said.
"I immediately understood what he was saying, obviously, because he wasn't about to give me $25,000 for appearing on the program when I could have been easily defeated and gone off with nothing. Once I said, 'Who wouldn't?' I became part of the game show hoax."the following night.
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