Van Doren’s dilemma

Charles Van Doren prefers not to dwell on ancient history. In 1959, after achieving national celebrity on the TV quiz show Twenty-One, the former Columbia University English instructor shocked the public by admitting he’d received the answers in advance. He’s kept a low profile ever since. But there was one time, he tells The New Yorker, when he was indeed tempted to revisit his past. That was when Robert Redford offered him $100,000 to be a consultant on Quiz Show, his 1994 movie about the scandal. “The more I thought about it, the more I felt that it couldn’t really hurt,” Van Doren recalls. “What the hell? Our children were grown, and we wouldn’t have to watch it.” But his wife, Gerry, was staunchly opposed. Van Doren wrestled with his decision until he began playing a K.T. Oslin tape. “A song on it called ‘Money’ had the refrain, ‘I don’t need money. All I need is you.’” That did the trick; Van Doren tore up Redford’s contract and hugged his wife. “Finally, she squirmed out of my grasp. ‘Let go!’ ‘Never!’ I said.” But that wasn’t the end of the story. Not long afterward, a car pulled up to Van Doren’s house in Connecticut and the driver asked for directions. “I realized later that he was Ralph Fiennes, who played me in the film. He told a reporter that he had driven by my house and had seen me looking ‘sad.’”

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