Herbert Milton Stempel (December 19, 1926 – April 7, 2020) was an American television game show contestant and subsequent whistleblower on the fraudulent nature of the industry, in what became known as the 1950s quiz show scandals. His rigged six-week appearance as a winning contestant on the 1950s show Twenty-One ended in an equally rigged defeat by Columbia University teacher and literary scion Charles Van Doren.
Stempel attended P.S. 89 in Queens, and was a self-described "avid reader" who was "interested in everything". He was skipped ahead several classes in school, so much so that his mother worried he was being pushed too far. When he was seven, his father died, and Stempel, his mother, and his older sister Harriet moved to what he describes as a "poorer part of the Bronx". It was in the midst of the Depression, and the struggling family was on public assistance for years.
Twenty-One was not Stempel's first quiz show. At a very young age, Stempel realized he had what he called a "retentive memory", in that he could read a page about a subject and summarize that page months later. He represented his elementary school, P.S. 6, on a radio quiz show, Americana History, where he remained undefeated for several weeks. He was one of the "Kid Wizards", a three-man team who represented The Bronx High School of Science in competitions against New York high schools, remaining undefeated throughout the year. He claimed his IQ was measured at 170.
Stempel graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in January 1944 and briefly attended classes at City College of New York (CCNY) before enlisting in the United States Army. He served in the 311th Regiment of the 78th Infantry Division and was on the front lines in Europe for a month before the war ended. Stempel remained in the Army for the next seven years, attending counterintelligence school in Baltimore, Maryland and serving as "an agent" until 1952, when he began work in the United States Post Office as a clerk. He married his wife, Toby, in 1954 and returned to CCNY on the G.I. Bill.
In 1956, after tuning in to a new program, Twenty-One, he was intrigued by the questions and wrote to Dan Enright, the show's producer, asking to be a contestant. The qualifying trivia test took three-and-a-half hours; Stempel got 251 out of 363 questions right, which he claimed was the highest score ever achieved.
At a time when the top five highest-rated programs on television were quiz shows, Twenty-One was a mainstay for Barry & Enright Productions and NBC, which aired the show:
It was the most impactful show we've ever had. The show went on the air in 1956 and we felt that it had such great quality and content to it that we would not have to rig it. In fact, the first show of Twenty-One was not rigged and the first show of Twenty-One was a dismal failure. It was just plain dull. Neither contestant was able to answer the questions, and the score remained at zero. It lacked all drama, it lacked all suspense. And next morning, the sponsor called my partner, Jack Barry, and me and told us in no uncertain terms that he never wanted to see a repeat of what happened the previous night. And from that moment on, we decided to rig Twenty-One.
Contestants on Twenty-One were given the questions and answers in advance and were coached as if they were actors, receiving instructions on which questions to answer correctly or incorrectly and how to behave during the game.
Several weeks later, Enright paid Stempel a visit while his wife was out at the theater and he was looking after their young son, and posed the fateful question: "How would you like to make $25,000?" Stempel immediately understood the implications; Enright was not going to pay him just for appearing on the show, when he could be easily defeated.
Once I said "Who wouldn't?," I became part of the game show hoax.
Stempel was not only provided with coaching on the answers and directions on how to deliver them, but on his physical appearance as well. Stempel was married to a woman whose family had money and the couple was not suffering financially, but Enright decided that the image of an underdog, a penniless GI working his way through school, would appeal to the American public. Enright personally selected his wardrobe: an oversized, baggy double-breasted suit that had belonged to Stempel's late father-in-law, a blue shirt with a frayed collar, "terrible looking" tie, and an old "Timex watch that ticked like an alarm clock", the sound of which would be picked up by the studio microphone and thus help build suspense.
The whole idea was to make me appear like an ex-G.I. working his way through college. The reason I had been asked to put on this old, ill-fitting suit and get this Marine-type haircut was to make me appear as what you would call today, a nerd, a square. ... I was never to call the Master of Ceremonies, Jack Barry, "Jack." I was always to call him "Mr. Barry" and be very, very humble and very sheepish. On the first program I was on, I was on for approximately four minutes and I won approximately $9,000. I had never had that much money in my life and I was absolutely flabbergasted.
Enright later explained the reasons behind this:
You want the viewer to react emotionally to a contestant. Whether he reacts favorably or negatively is really not that important. The important thing is that he reacts. He should watch a contestant, hoping that the contestant will win or he should watch the contestant, hoping the contestant will lose. And Herb, I felt, was the type of personality who instilled the latter. Viewers would watch him and pray for his opponent to win. ... When he applied to the show and he took the test, he scored a very, very high score. He was the type of contestant who could very well antagonize viewers.
Stempel ostensibly won $69,500, which was presented to him as an unnotarized "settlement" agreement.
As weeks went by, people began to recognize me more and more. I got more and more fan mail. My classmates at college were very proud of me. My professors were proud of me. I just couldn't hold this inside of me, though, because I was overjoyed about being a celebrity, winning and so forth. I was overwhelmed.
... Then, Dan Enright said to me, "You know, Herb, you're not going to get all the money that you've won so far or are going to win." I said, "What? What do you mean?" He says, "No," he says, "We have to look out for ourselves, so I have a paper here which you're going to have to sign." I realized that if I didn't sign, I might not find myself on the program too much longer, so I decided to sign.
Even though Stempel agreed to take less money, that actually made no difference: his ratings were dropping and the producers decided he had to go. A new contestant was selected to challenge him and knock him off. He was an English instructor at Columbia University, Charles Van Doren. Van Doren was persuaded to go along with the fraud by an appeal that his appearance would help glamorize information and intellectualism. His impact was immediate and his name quickly became synonymous with quiz shows. For week after week, the two men battled it out, tying with scores of 21–21, as tens of millions of Americans tuned in to see if their new hero would beat Stempel.