After two years of substandard work at Duke University, Ms. von Nardroff was suspended for a semester. She described herself in This Week as having been a “rebellious, raccoon-skinned, Champagne-tossing holdover from the ’20s.” She studied diligently after being reinstated, majoring in English, and graduated in 1947.
She held various jobs, including secretary to a diet doctor, ticket agent at Northwest Airlines, proofreader at House Beautiful magazine and personnel director at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. She was working at the institute, where she earned $500 a month, when she received a call in late 1956 from a woman working for Mr. Barry and Mr. Enright, whose company produced “Tic-Tac-Dough” as well as “Twenty-One.” She was looking for brainy contestants for both shows.
By Ms. von Nardroff’s account in This Week, her roommate watched “Tic-Tac-Dough” and peppered her with questions from the show, all of which she correctly answered. That success prompted Ms. von Nardroff to call back in April 1957 and ask to try out for the show; when she passed the 20-minute written test, she took another one, which lasted three hours, for “Twenty-One” and also qualified.
But she did not enjoy her time as a “Twenty-One” winner for long.
Within months after she took home the $220,500, Frank S. Hogan, the Manhattan district attorney, convened a grand jury to investigate quiz shows. Herbert Stempel, whom Mr. Van Doren had defeated on “Twenty-One,” had revealed that the producers had coached him extensively. An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight in 1959 followed. (The scandal later became the focus of the 1994 film “Quiz Show,” directed by Robert Redford.)
Joseph Stone, an assistant district attorney in Manhattan who led the quiz show investigation for Mr. Hogan, later recalled that Albert Freedman, the producer of “Twenty-One,” had provided Ms. von Nardroff with questions and answers in his office and in her apartment in Brooklyn.
“When he proposed to her the usual arrangement, she was at first reluctant, but then agreed and reigned as champion until July 8, 1958, receiving assistance all along,” he wrote in “Prime Time and Misdemeanors: Investigating the 1950s Quiz Show Scandal — A DA’s Account” (1992, with Tim Yohn).
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
