Herb Stempel
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.[1] 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.
Herb Stempel
April 7, 2020 (aged 93)
City College of New York
Examiner before trial, New York City Dept of Transportation; former television game show contestant.
Toby Stempel (deceased)
Ethel Stempel
1
Early life[edit]
A self-described "avid reader" as a child, who was "interested in everything", Stempel attended P.S. 89 in Queens. 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".[2] 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 refers to as a "retentive memory", in that he could read a page about a subject and then, months later, summarize that page. He represented his elementary school, P.S. 6, on a radio quiz show, Americana History, where he remained undefeated for several weeks. He was part 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 claims his IQ has been measured at 170.[2]
Stempel graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in January 1944. He 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,[2] 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.