TV & Radio: The Wizard of Quiz

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The game isolates its two contestants in glass-walled booths. Each tries to amass 21 points by answering questions in categories over which he has no choice. The questions are worth from one to eleven points according to difficulty, and by picking the number, he can choose how hard a question he wants (Van Doren's frequent strategy is to pick the tough 10-and 11-point questions and go for a quick 21). At the end of the second round, either contestant can stop the game if he thinks he is ahead. The winner gets $500 a point for the difference between his score and the loser's—paid out of the loser's stake, if any. In case the opponents tie at 21, each game necessary for the play-off is played for an additional $500 a point.

Thus after four tie games. Van Doren once found himself playing for $2,500 a point against a Manhattan textbook writer named Ruth Miller. He won 21-0, sweeping up $52,500. In all, he has mowed down ten opponents, including lawyers, teachers and an ex-college president, by tackling 50 questions on such subjects as Shakespeare, baseball, chemistry, art, medicine, explorers and the American Revolution. Over the weeks, while groaning, muttering and mugging, he has managed a staggering variety of hard ones, e.g., identifying the main Balearic Islands (Majorca, Minorca, Iviza and Formentera); the only three baseball players who have amassed more than 3,500 hits (Ty Cobb, Cap Anson, Tris Speaker); the process of photosynthesis. On the six occasions when he has muffed questions, e.g., the identity of the Republican vice-presidential candidate who died before Election Day in 1912 (James S. Sherman), Van Doren's luck and gambling skill have averted defeat.

Lion Follows Christian. Twenty One has built its week-to-week suspense on whether Van Doren will keep plunging or quit while he is so far ahead. By now, he risks little to keep going. It would take eleven tie games followed by a 21-0 defeat to wipe out his winnings. His income-tax bracket is so high that if he were defeated in a game that cost him, say, $20,000, he would actually be out of pocket only $2,200 (see chart). Of the $122,000 he has won, income taxes will let the unmarried, $4,400-a-year instructor keep perhaps as little as $32,600.*

Already a pioneer in the stratosphere of quiz shows, Van Doren has only a fictitious precedent if he decides to press on. In a 1950 movie comedy, Champagne for Caesar, Ronald Colman played an omniscient scholar who almost wins a quiz-show sponsor's $40 million soap company. Says Sponsor Rosenhaus: "Everybody keeps asking if Van Doren is going to win the Geritol company. But we're safe." Geritol's contract with Barry & Enright limits its annual outlay for prizes to $520,000; anything over that comes out of the producers' pocket. So far, Van Doren's winnings have been running Barry & Enright into the hole at the rate of $2,200 a week. Nevertheless, they are eager for him to keep playing. If the show's rating keeps climbing, especially if it tops Lucy, it could become a property worth $1,000,000 or more to them.