“That’s the $64,000 question!” This once-common expression, now used primarily by oldies (like me), was a response to a challenging query or conundrum. Its origins trace back to a wildly popular 1950s game show, The $64,000 Question, wherein contestants answered increasingly difficult questions, doubling their winnings with each correct answer. The ultimate reward? Of course, a grand prize of $64,000.

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Television game shows have been a standard component of American TV since its earliest days. The genre began with simple question-and-answer formats like Quiz Kids and Truth or Consequences, which included live studio excitement. The quiz show format hit a golden era in the ‘50s. Such shows grew popular, with their “reality” feel which showcased wits, knowledge and cash.

The $64,000 Question was enormously popular from the get-go.  Starting at 10PM Eastern Time on Thursday nights, the following cultural statistics dropped dramitically on Thursday evenings:  movie theater attendance, other shows’ ratings, crime, car crashes, and long-distance phone calls.  Within a year sponsor Revlon had tripled its sales.

However, the genre faced a major hit from scandal when it was revealed that parts of some episodes were rigged. This led to a decline in popularity.  The Revson brothers, Charles and Joseph, who had co-founded the Revlon cosmetics company that sponsored $64,000 became very involved in influencing production of the shows, especially Charles.  Answers were sometimes provided a priori to some contestants deemed to have “audience appeal” … perhaps based on Nielson Ratings, which began in 1950.

The scandals led to congressional hearings, damage to all game show viewership, and strict regulations. ^[1]

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Joyce Diane Bauer – born in Brooklyn, NY, on October 29, 1927 – was the eldest of two daughters born to Jewish parents, both lawyers: Morris K. Bauer and Estelle Rapport.  They had hoped for a boy – the name Joseph had been selected.  “Joyce” would do.  She was raised by her highly intelligent parents without any regard to her gender.  With highly accomplished parents, and libraries of books and literature in the house, the expectation of high achievement was implicit: tacit, yet plain to perceive.

Joyce grew up not merely highly intelligent, but ambitious and blessed with a knack for psychology. At 14 or 15 she founded and ran her own ballet school; the first few months were free of charge.  Then they would pay to continue.  Young Joyce would spin stories through those months, dropping a bit of the plot at each session.  At the end of the free-trial the stories had reached such a point of excitement that they encouraged students to continue … and pay tuition.

She graduated high school shortly after turning 16, then earned degrees at Cornell and Columbia:  double BS degrees in Economics and Psychology at Cornell, then a MA and a PhD in Psychology at Columbia.

At 21 years-old Joyce Bauer married a young 23-year newly-minted doctor with a very modest income, as he toiled through his internship.  She’d be married to Milton Brothers MD for 40 years, until his passing from cancer.

When a daughter, Lisa, arrived in 1957 they were again somewhat financially pressed.  Game shows with cash awards were popular, so, she took a swing at landing on $64,000 Question.

Clearly bright, with a calm, cheery demeanor, she was selected to compete after rounds of interviews and scoring 100% on a timed, 50 question test of broad general knowledge.

There was one question per week after reaching $4,000 in a single show (or perhaps two shows). ^[2] Winnings doubled each week, or they could bail with what they had (like Who wants to be a Millionaire).  If they succeeded at $4,000, then that amount was guaranteed until their run ended (also like Millionaire), limiting the risk of attempting difficult questions.

In screening, contestants were required to list subject areas in which they were knowledgeable in a questionnaire. She listed psychology and home economics. Per game rules, these would be avoided.  Charles Revson, co-founder of Revlon which sponsored the show, often meddled in the show’s production.  If he didn’t like a contestant, he pushed for tougher questions.  Joyce should get sports.  Not any sport.  Pick a sport not in the news every day, every week. Boxing.

Her husband, Dr Brothers, however, was a boxing fan.  She thought boxing would fine.  It was agreed.

Joyce was essentially totally ignorant of boxing.  A complete blank.

She spent the three months before her appearance studying every possible aspect of the pugnacious sport. She had access to 20 volumes of boxing history, and her husband’s years of “The Ring” magazine.

She memorized it all. ALL.  The rules. The competitors.  The champions.  The challengers. The knockouts, the TKOs, the judges’ decisions. The locations and dates and result of all important matches.  Joyce could digest and retain mountains of facts.

Joyce zoomed easily to the $16,000 level.  Charles Revson did not like her.  He wanted her eliminated.  A boxing historian and expert, Nat Fleischer, was recruited to devise the questions for this round. ^[3] She was given four questions, each requiring her to name the referees of four famous boxing matches.  No one — No one — expected her to get even one correct, let alone ALL four.  She did.  Start about 12:05 here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqhxN9a8OCg.

When she won the $64,000 grand prize on October 27, 1957, giving the final correct answer to the question (of three that day) “What is Sugar Ray Robinson’s record as a professional?”, she become quite famous.

The show had recently expanded its top award to $128K.  So, after winning the title amount, she returned and did indeed attain the $128,000 maximum winnings.

Dr Joyce Brothers parlayed all of this into an extraordinary career, including, most prominently, as the nation’s de facto national psychologist.

She wrote and was consulted for decades on psychology for all sorts of things.  She wrote columns. 40 years for Good Housekeeping, and about the same for her syndicated column, which was carried by 300 newspapers. She wrote several books. She was on TV often, sharing advice for all, including nearly 100 appearances with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, with whom she developed a warm friendship.  From the Today Show, to Good Morning America and even Conan, she appeared in many popular shows, offering her well-reasoned, practical and informed advice.

She also hosted more than a few TV shows herself, The Dr. Joyce Brothers Show, Consult Dr. Brothers, Tell Me, Dr. Brothers, Ask Dr. Brothers, and Living Easy with Dr. Joyce Brothers.  Here she covered a wide range of topics, such as looking at the future of American football, and the psychology of: football, women’s ever-changing clothing styles, HIV & AIDS, and the rise of school shootings. She made psychology interesting and available.

In one on-air live episode she helped a depressed caller avoid suicide by engaging him for 30-minutes until help arrived.

In March, 1958 she was, famously, the first female on-air broadcaster for a boxing match.  Working for CBS, she contributed color commentary in a big show-down between Carmen Basilio II and Sugar Ray Robinson at Chicago Stadium.   It was highly watched, a brutal 15-round battle, as Sugar Ray re-gained the Middleweight crown Basilo, who had taken it from him the year before.  Her esteem rose even higher. ^[4]

Coincidentally (ironically?) her $64,000 answer had been about Robinson.

It would be far too lengthy to touch on all of her remarkable achievements.

Dr Joyce Bauer Brothers outlasted her husband by 24 years, passing in 2013, age 85.

“Love comes when manipulation stops and you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you.”
― Dr. Joyce Brothers

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Barbara Anne Hall was born, in Butler, western Pennsylvania on March 12, 1933, also the eldest of two daughters, to Jack and Dorothy Hall.

Raised in nearby Bethel Hill, a few minutes south of Pittsburgh, Barbara took an early liking to the arts in general, and acting in particular.   Her parents were totally supportive. She studied briefly at Pittsburgh Playhouse and later earned a degree at Carnegie Institute of Technology in drama.

She was working as a show-girl in a short-lived revival of the Ziegfeld Follies at the Winter Garden Theater when she and fellow show-girls applied to be on $64,000.

She had previously performed at the very high end night club Copacabana, where she danced with many famous personalities.  Even today she says that dancing with Fred Astaire is one of the brightest highlights of her life.  The Ziegfeld Follies productions also had her appear with famous stars of that era. ^[5]

Barbara also scored 100% on the general knowledge test. Perky, clearly bright, engaging, and possessing a stage-presence, she was accepted to appear as a contestant, also in 1957.  Even though, with common gender stereotyping of the era, many of the staff were skeptical of a show-girl’s intelligence.

[I suspect that she and the others were actually approached by $64,000 to compete … all of the Ziegfeld ladies were attractive with stage presence.]

She was given difficult topics to choose from; she agreed to Shakespeare. Although she’d studied drama, the bard from Stratford-upon-Avon was not at all in her wheelhouse.  Drama is a wide field; Shakespeare is both very wide and very deep. She spent months studying the creations and life of the greatest Elizabethan writer.

The brilliant Barbara Hall, of course, won the Grand Prize.  She provided the final $64,000 correct answer on June 25, 1957 (coincidentally my parents’ 2^nd anniversary … wonder if they watched as I slept?)  — just as the Follies Revival ended, forever, as it turns out.

Trivia: Ed Sullivan was an on-and-off guest host that summer – the regular host, Ed March, was off shooting a movie – and it was Sullivan who asked Barbara Hall the $64K questions.

As $128K was now the top prize, she returned the following week, earning another $32,000.  However, she missed the next week for another $32K.  Nonetheless, $96,000 was an awful lot of money in 1957.

This greatly eased her financial situation. This might have partially led to her marriage to Lucien Verdoux-Feldon in 1958, a freelance photographer in portraits, often associated with shows and show personalities. Details are scant, but he was likely shooting at the Copa, Winter Garden, and/or the $64,000 studio.

Like all winners, Barbara became quite famous, and as an attractive lady, this suggested a boost to her hoped for acting career.   But it took awhile.

Minor modeling assignments, and one-off bit parts in several TV serials, including Flipper, Man from U.N.C.L.E, and 12 O’clock High kept her career alive, but not really thriving.

As an advertising model, she made quite an impression in the 1960s with a TV ad for Top Brass men’s hair products. Stretched out casually and seductively on a tiger skin, pitching with a Kathleen Turner-type sexy voice, she got a lot of attention.  This time, some big-time attention.

Spotted by scouts for a new TV comedy, she was cast in her career’s most iconic role as Agent 99 (no name ever given to her character) on the comedy spy show Get Smart, created by the teamwork of the brilliant Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.

The show ran from 1965-1970, opening in September, 1965 immediately after the inaugural show of I Dream of Jeannie.  I’m not sure she ever really she escaped the typecast of Agent-99 on a goofy spy show: the smart, svelte and stylish female co-star in a show otherwise full of nitwits and half-wits.  Well, she was always smart and stylish, everywhere she went. ^[6]

She went on to appear in many TV shows and movies, including numerous appearances on popular comedy variety shows like The Dean Martin Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and even Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-In.  And, coming full circle, The Ed Sullivan Show.

She also won two Emmys for her performances in Get Smart.  In a sort of reunion of note, Barbara Feldon co-starred with Jeannie’s Barbara Eden (the “genie” in Jeannie) in the quirky rom-coms A House Is Not a Home (1964), and The Lonely Guy (1984).  I’d say both were rather typecast, as they played, again, the smart, good looking, sensible women who provided wisdom and calmness in humorous chaotic scenes.

Long cherished by all who saw her perform, now age 91, her life is quiet, very personal, with some writings. She stopped film appearances in 2006, ending with the mystery-comedy Last Request.

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Barbara’s husband, Lucien, turned out to be an abusive alcoholic. That marriage ended after 12 childless years.  She had a 12-year relationship soon thereafter with Burt (aka Cary) Nodella, 9 years her elder, who produced 47 episodes of Get Smart.

“There’s not a day when somebody doesn’t smile and say, ‘Oh, you’re Agent 99!’ I like being in a world that regards me in a friendly way.”  — Barbara Feldon, interview with Toby Kahn, 1983.

Barbara Anne Hall Feldon and Joyce Diane Bauer Brothers – two highly intelligent, beloved, revered, respected and successful women who share a remarkable coincidence: winners of the $64,000 grand prize (roughly $700,000 today).   In the end, Hall-Feldon at $96,000 and Brothers at $128,000 … that’s over a million bucks equivalent in today’s dollars, each.

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Overall, there were only 11 top winners in the 4 years that $64,000 ran (1955-58, inclusive), and only 3 were women (Dot McCullock was the 3^rd).  Several of these 11 were tarnished by the scandal, later admitting to investigators and congress that they’d been provided some answers a priori. Both Brothers and Feldon vehemently denied being involved (Brothers breaking down in tears during questioning); producers later verified their innocence in testimony.

These two women were the first to win such a substantial amount on national television, making them trailblazers in a time when quiz shows were dominated by male contestants and hosts.

The $64,000 show was terminated in November, 1958; the other Revlon sponsored show, the more scandalous Twenty-One, sponsored by Geritol (by Pharmaceuticals, Inc), was canceled a month earlier.

Joe Girard (c) 2024

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Footnotes:

[1]  A smaller part of the scandal was that contestants were coached on how to act and give answers so as to heighten the drama.  Brothers and Hall-Feldon both admitted to receiving this coaching, although Hall-Feldon, as a performer in both drama and stage shows, probably needed much less.

[2] My research suggests that contestants answered six questions valued at $64, $128, $256, $512, $1,000 and $2,000 before advancing to the “one question per week” levels, beginning at $4,000

[3] Fleischer was the editor in chief of The Ring magazine.

[4] Robinson was also, earlier, world champion at the Welterweight level.  He’s often referred to as the greatest boxer of all time.

[5] Ziegfeld Follies:  https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/culture-magazines/ziegfeld-follies
[5a] Winter Garden Theater was a very high-end theater in the center of NYC’s Broadway theater district. For example, Roberts’ and Berstein’s forever famous West Side Story opened there that year, 1957.

[6] I Dream of Jeannie became famous for allowing, for the first time ever, a woman’s navel to be shown (regularly) on TV.  Eden’s eye-catching beauty, curvaceous figure, exposed belly button, and penchant for addressing the lead male character, Anthony Nelson, as “Master” probably did a lot to draw males into the audience of this otherwise ridiculous show.

Non-footnoted notes:

1. In another coincidence, Dr Brothers was also a frequent guest on The Ed Sullivan Show. Probably, more often than Feldon.
2. The Revsons were co-founders of Revlon with chemist Charles Lachman. So, the name Revlon, with an “L” for Lachman instead of “S” was a nod to his participation.  Charles was largely the businessman in the group, with Joseph (and later another brother Martin) and Lachman focusing on product development and manufacturing.   Perhaps not coincidently, all were Jewish.Sponsoring both Twenty-One and $64,000 was considered a gamble.  The ultimate goal, of course, was to sell cosmetics.  There was concern that black and white broadcasting would not deliver the desired result.  Charles Revson, the more business-oriented of the team, took the chance.
3. As both Brothers and Hall (Feldon) appeared in mid-1957, I am presuming that this was a conscious attempt to attract and appease audiences. Bright women appearing, often doing well, especially nice-looking, would increase attention from both genders.
4. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/05/dr-joyce-brothers-47-dies-age-85
5. Geritol/Pharmaceuticals was also investigated for faulty advertising claims in 1957-58