Elfrida von Nardroff, historical footnote.
She kept a low public profile for much of her life, but back in the 1950s, she was on television. Specifically, the quiz show “Twenty-One”.
Over several months in 1958, Ms. von Nardroff charmed television viewers as she defeated one opponent after another on her way to winning $220,500 ($2.1 million in today’s dollars). That dwarfed the $129,000 (nearly $1.3 million) that the show’s most famous contestant, Charles Van Doren, an English instructor at Columbia University, had won in 1956 and 1957.
Of course, you know where this is going, right?
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 became the focus of the 1994 film “Quiz Show,” directed by Robert Redford.)
…
Mr. Stone delved into Ms. von Nardroff’s claims of deep research and found them dubious. He saw little evidence for her claim that she had analyzed “Twenty-One” topics so extensively that she had filled numerous notebooks.
He sent investigators to the main branch of the New York Public Library at 42nd Street, where they showed her picture to see if anyone recognized her from all the time she said she had spent there. They did not. (Ms. von Nardroff said she had taken out books but did not do research at the library, Mr. Stone recounted.) She admitted that the article in This Week was only “impressionistically true.”
…
She, Mr. Van Doren and 12 other contestants were arrested that October and charged with second-degree perjury, a misdemeanor. She and nine other contestants, including Mr. Van Doren, pleaded guilty in early 1962 and received suspended sentences.
For the historical record: bell hooks.
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