THE WIZARDS OF QUIZ
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A sort of 20th-century revenge tragedy, The Wizards of Quiz purports to tell the true-life tale of Herbert Stempel, the disgraced former champion of the 1950s quiz show Twenty-One. After nine weeks of spectacular winnings–nearly $70,000–Stempel lost big, and intentionally, to Charles Van Doren, scion of a scholarly WASP clan. Later determined to vindicate himself and his intelligence, Stempel denounced “the wizard of quiz” as a fellow fraud who had been coached on the questions. At first Stempel was ignored, but three years later he testified against Van Doren in the 1959 congressional quiz-show hearings. (The vaguely opportunistic Stempel was in fact a bit player in a much larger fraud; revelations about the quiz show Dotto were the ones that triggered the cleanup.)
A 29-year-old student at City College of New York, Stempel brought a common touch to Twenty-One; the ex-GI with an IQ of 170 won on the basis of his mammoth knowledge and staggering memory. But when the show’s ratings dropped, producer Daniel Enright brought in Van Doren, a Columbia University professor of English literature and author of three books whose boyish good looks and dignified mien quickly won him a national following. It was almost inevitable that Stempel, a nerdy egghead, would take a dive so the golden boy could win. (Stempel did walk away with $49,500, but he lost it in gambling and other debts, then was deserted by his aggrieved wife.)
Backing Jemison up are deft performances from Dev Kennedy as unctuous quiz-show host Jack Barry (and several cunning cameos), Richard Wharton as the amazingly accessible TV producer, David Mink as a rabid anti-Semitic congressman, Debra Rich as Stempel’s less-than-helpful helpmate, and Warren Davis as his shy barber friend. Fittingly, Christopher Howe plays Van Doren as a natural people’s hero, revealing his rather unattractive human side only in a self-serving second-act speech in which Van Doren lamely distinguishes between the doubt a true intellectual experiences and the antiseptic certainty required of a quiz whiz.
