Word: stempel
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...condemn us all in wholesale fashion," pleaded Twenty One's Packager Dan Enright. "Lift the mystery and establish the facts." Herbert Stempel, 31, one of the show's earliest big-money winners ($49,000), claimed to be doing just that. He was hardly a confidence-inspiring witness. He seemed bent on destroying the reputations of everyone connected with the show, admitted bitterly envying Charles Van Doren, the man who defeated him. ("I took my wife to the theater one night, and I overheard somebody saying, 'That's the guy who was beat by Charles Van Doren...
Acting School. After applying for a spot on the show in the fall of 1956, Stempel, then a C.C.N.Y. student, took a general information test, and did remarkably well. One night Producer Enright went to Herb's apartment and gave him another verbal exam. "Then," says Herb, "Dan leaned back and said, 'How'd you like to win a lot of money?' I said, 'Well, sure.' 'Look,' he said, 'kid, play ball with...
What seemed to irritate Stempel the most was the occasional insistence that he give a wrong answer. "I was forced to admit that I didn't know where the Taj Mahal is; I was forced to say that Gothic architecture originated in Germany when I know damn well it was France. See, that's the trend now: a big winner will have to flub the easy ones to make the American public look good." Eventually, said Herb, Enright told him, "We've reached a plateau. We need a new face." Herb was forced to lose...
Ready Answers. Dapper Dan Enright had a ready answer: Stempel's story had long since been proved false. Stempel had indeed tried to peddle his story to the New York Post and the Journal-American more than a year ago, and neither paper had been sufficiently convinced to print it. He had also signed a "confession" for Enright, stating that his charges had been false. But last week, when Stempel repeated his fraud story to the district attorney, the World-Telegram & Sun and the Journal published it-and were promptly sued for libel by Barry & Enright Productions...
...Stempel, too, had some ready answers. Why had he signed a retraction? Said Stempel...