Charles Van Doren

Charles Van Doren (born February 12, 1926) is an American intellectual and former TV quiz show contestant. In the late 1950s he was involved in a scandal when he confessed that he had been given the right answers by the producers of the show, who had wanted to attract more viewers that way.

On November 2, 1959, he admitted to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance for the game show Twenty-One.

An assistant professor at Columbia University, in his later years Van Doren became an editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the author of several books, of which A History of Knowledge is probably his most famous.

The story of his quiz show scandal, and Van Doren in particular, is depicted in the film Quiz Show (1994).