Charles Van Doren

Charles Lincoln Van Doren (born February 12, 1926) is an American intellectual and former TV quiz show contestant. In the late 1950s he was involved in a scandal when he confessed that he had been given the right answers by the producers of the show, who had wanted to attract more viewers that way.

Related Topics:
February 12 - 1926 - American - Intellectual - TV - Quiz show - 1950s

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The son of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mark Van Doren and novelist and writer Dorothy Van Doren, Van Doren was a committed academic with an unusually broad range of interests. He earned a B.A. degree in Liberal Arts from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, and went on to obtain a master's degree in astrophysics and a doctorate in English, both at Columbia University.

Related Topics:
Pulitzer Prize - Poet - Mark Van Doren - Novelist - Dorothy Van Doren - Academic - B.A. - Liberal Arts - St. John's College - Annapolis, Maryland - Master's degree - Astrophysics - Doctorate - Columbia University

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In 1956, he applied to be an contestant on the game show Twenty-One. Seeking to bolster fading ratings, the producers of the show engineered a dramatic rise to prominence for the polite and presentable Van Doren. Van Doren would be Herb Stempel's replacement. Starting from January, 1957 he entered a winning streak that ultimately earned him over $138,000 and he became hugely famous, appearing on the cover of TIME magazine on February 11 1957. His run finally ended March 11 1957, when he lost to Vivienne Nearing, a lawyer whose husband Van Doren had previously beaten.

Related Topics:
1956 - Game show - Twenty-One - Herb Stempel's - 1957 - TIME - February 11 - March 11

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When allegations of cheating were first circulated, Van Doren repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying "It's silly and distressing to think that people don't have more faith in quiz shows." Finally, on November 2, 1959, he admitted to the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight,

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November 2 - 1959 - House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight

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a United States Congress subcommittee, chaired by Arkansas Democrat Owen Harris, that he had been given questions and answers in advance of the show. "I was involved, deeply involved, in a deception...I have deceived my friends - and I had millions of them," Van Doren testified.

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The story of his quiz show scandal, and Van Doren in particular, is depicted in the film Quiz Show (1994) (in that film, he was played by prolific British actor Ralph Fiennes). Produced by Robert Redford, the film was a box office success despite earning several critiques questioning its excessive dramatic license, its accuracy - particularly the elevation of subcommittee staff investigator Richard Goodwin, who actually had no involvement in the quiz show investigations until they nearly ended - and even the motivation behind its making. The critics have included Joseph Stone, the New York prosecutor who began the investigations in the first place.

Related Topics:
Quiz show scandal - Quiz Show - 1994 - British - Ralph Fiennes

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In the aftermath of the scandal, Van Doren was dropped from NBC and resigned from his post of assistant professor at Columbia University. But in due course he flourished out of the public eye. He became an editor at Praeger Books and a pseudonymous (at first) writer, before becoming an editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica and the author of several books, of which A History of Knowledge is probably his most famous. He also became the co-author of How to Read a Book, with philosopher Mortimer J. Adler.

Related Topics:
Professor - Columbia University - Editor - Encyclopædia Britannica - A History of Knowledge - How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler

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Van Doren still refuses interview or public comment when the subject is to be the quiz show scandals. He also revisited Columbia University only twice in the forty years that followed his resignation in the heat of the quiz show scandals: in 1984, when his son graduated; and, in 1999, at a reunion of Columbia's Class of 1959, which entered the university when Van Doren first became a teacher there in 1955. During that appearance, Van Doren made one intriguing allusion to the quiz scandal without mentioning the scandal by name:

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Some of you read with me 40 years ago a portion of Aristotle's Ethics, a selection of passages that describe his idea of happiness. You may not remember too well. I remember better, because, despite the abrupt caesura in my academic career that occurred in 1959, I have gone on teaching the humanities almost continually to students of all kinds and ages. In case you don't remember, then, I remind you that according to Aristotle happiness is not a feeling or sensation but instead is the quality of a whole life. The emphasis is on "whole," a life from beginning to end. Especially the end. The last part, the part you're now approaching, was for Aristotle the most important for happiness. It makes sense, doesn't it?

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