Show Business: The People Getters

It was 5 p.m., and crowds were beginning to swarm across Manhattan toward the trains and buses and subways that would take them home. But for pretty Diane Lawson, 30, it was time to get to work. Diane, a pert, yare redhead, began to patrol the streets. When she spotted a likely prospect, she stopped him with a time-honored approach: "Pardon me, but may I speak to you a minute?"

Diane Lawson was not practicing the world's oldest profession, but one of its newest; she was collecting contestants for TV's talent-hungry quiz shows. Once they heard her pitch, the people Diane...