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now Bergen Evans, Ph.D.
PICKS THE $64,000 QUESTIONS
Whatever else it takes to work your way into the stratospheric regions on The $64,000 Question, you must have one fine memory. In fact, the man who makes up the questions for the show, Dr. Bergen Evans, doesn’t believe the program is a test of knowledge at all. “Memory is the thing,” he confides.
Evans, for years English literature professor at Chicago’s Northwestern University, has been skipping around the country (Chicago to New York and back) and around the networks (from ABC’s Down You Go to CBS for The $64,000 Question). Of late, his new way of life has become frustrating.
There are more questions he cannot ask than he can ask. Of those he can, half turn out to be too easy or too difficult; obscure or provocative. Before the show got under way last summer, the professor spent three weeks compiling topics and questions. Since that time, some categories were found to be “booby traps” (Men Called Sam) because there were no reference books to hand contestants passing the $16,000 level; others needed narrowing (mythology and history).
A brilliant, dynamic man, the professor does not consider himself an expert in all fields. He knows little about jazz and nothing about baseball, two categories compiled by outside authorities. For all other classifications, he prefers to think of himself as a “good research man.”
The associate producer of the show, Mert Koplin, laughs at Evans’ modesty, adding, “The man is a Biblical authority, is writing a dictionary on contemporary American usage of words and knows literature the way a professor of the subject should. He could pull whole series of questions out of his head without once reaching for a book.” However, Evans reaches for books often, and no question is used if the answer cannot be authoritatively verified.
Sometimes a question, although verified, brings complaints. One such: Who posed for the famous Mona Lisa painting? Qualified art critics said Lisa del Giocondo; but one critic insisted the model was either Da Vinci’s mistress or a small boy. continued
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