Trivia for
Quiz Show (1994)

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• Robert Redford claims that he spotted the real Charles Van Doren's acting while he was watching the show during his tenure at acting school.
  
  
• Although the setting is supposed to be Columbia University, portions of the movie were filmed at Fordham University in the Bronx.
  
  
• Before filming began, Ralph Fiennes wanted to speak with Charles Van Doren in person to get his accent down for the role. However, the feeling was that Charles Van Doren would not want to help with the film at all. So Ralph Fiennes and one of the film's staff drove to the town in rural Connecticut where Charles Van Doren lives. They found Charles Van Doren sitting on a chair outside his house, and Ralph Fiennes pretended to be a lost driver and asked him for directions.
  
  

• Herb Stempel's son was actually only an infant at the time of the quiz show scandal. Herb Stempel had been trying to tell people that the show was fixed long before he lost his run; it was only after the CBS game show "Dotto" (1958) was exposed as rigged in May, 1958, did people start to listen to him, not publishing the accusations until August, 1958.
  
  
• In January, 1957, Herb Stempel and Charles Van Doren actually had a series of three scripted ties and Charles Van Doren finally won on the fourth game. While Charles Van Doren did lose to Vivienne Nearing, he actually played against her three times to a tie before losing. He had beat her husband, Victor Nearing, earlier in the year. He signed a 3-year contract for $150,000 ($50,000 a year in the movie, pretty much got it right) in April, 1957, to guest on Steve Allen's show, guest host the "Today" (1952) show, and be a panelist on NBC's radio show, "Conversations."
  
  
• Charles Van Doren did talk to the grand jury and through his lawyer, saying he was innocent, and even claimed that, "it is silly and distressing to think that people don't have more faith in quiz shows." He offered to appear before the Congressional (House) Committee (on Interstate and Foreign Commerce), so they subpoenaed him to do so; in November of 1959 he confessed. He told reporters at the following press conference that he had been, "living in dread for almost 3 years."
  
  
• Charles Van Doren's resignation was accepted at Columbia, and he went on to become editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica for two decades (and wrote "How to Read a Book" and others, though didn't publish under his real name for many years after the scandal).
  
  
• At one point, Steven Soderbergh was offered to direct with Tim Robbins starring as Charles Van Doren.
  
  
• Tim Robbins was originally going to play Charles Van Doren.
  
  
• Originally devised as a project for Richard Dreyfuss, with Harold Becker directing.
  
  
• This film features at least three directors in small roles: Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, and Douglas McGrath.
  
  
• In the film Dick Goodwin mentions that the Reuben Sandwich as being the only "truly invented" sandwich in the world and he credits a Reuben K (actual name Reuben Kulakofsky) as having invented it. It was entered into a national sandwich competition in 1956 by a Fern Snider. Truth is that the inventor of the sandwich is unknown and the recipe goes back to about 1908 which is about 20 years before Mr Kulakosky first invented it.
  
  
• The real Herb Stempel makes an unbilled appearance as one of the former contestants interviewed by Richard Goodwin.
  
  
• Producers Barry Levinson and Mark Johnson had their names taken off the credits even though they had been instrumental in getting the film made. They settled instead for a namecheck for their production company Baltimore Pictures. This was because they felt that listing eleven producer credits for just one film was far too many.
  
  
• The charcoal drawing of Mark Van Doren seen hanging in the Van Doren home is that of the real Mark Van Doren, not Paul Scofield who portrayed him in the film.
  
  

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