Television: Wizard of Quiz (Contd.)

• Share

Charles Van Doren's unprecedented quiz-winning streak -(TIME, Feb. 11) last week brought him another $16,000 in the Monday night game of Twenty One. Grand total: $138,000. As always, the lanky Columbia English instructor, just turned 31, put himself—and his audience —through the wringer to get his answers. But out they came in time's nick to give him two perfect 21 scores against Challengers John Kieran Jr., 35, son of the Information Please expert, and Dr. Hall Griffith, 57, a writer. The wringer produced stunning oddments of knowledge, e.g., the members of George Washington's first Cabinet.

In the quiz business two challengers confronted Van Doren. Eleven-year-old Leonard Ross of Tujunga, Calif., an astoundingly precocious know-it-all about the stock market, moved ahead of Van Doren as a money winner by adding the jackpot of The $64,000 Challenge to his take of $100,000 from The Big Surprise. And CBS's I Love Lucy, which NBC hopes to jar out of its five-year supremacy, still kept a narrow lead of five Trendex rating points over Twenty One. But as Van Doren turned down movie offers and sweated out his weekly decision whether to keep putting his money on the line, NBC still felt hopeful in putting its money on him.