The $64,000 Question and Dr. Joyce Brothers

Before I offer what I about to offer (the final question Dr. Joyce Brothers answered to win $64,000) I want to address the notion that Dr. Brothers cheated her way to the 'title.' – She hadn't; three years after her success,  when the quiz show scandal broke big in the news, (circa '58 - '59), one of the accused producers, who at that point had nothing to gain, exonerated Dr. Brothers during testimony, stating that she was not assisted in any manner during her run for the $64K, (admitting others were)*

In fact, the producer added that any 'cheating' that may occurred involving Brothers, was in fact reversed. It seems Dr. Brothers was a ratings dud and mid-competition (the competition being spread over several weeks,) the producers decided that she needed to go, so they deliberately put together, in hope of tripping her up, a multi-part question dealing with only referees; but Brothers was ready for them and answered all the questions easily.

Brothers coach for the competition was Col. Edward Egan a former New York State boxing commissioner, but maybe more importantly was Dr. Brothers relationship with Nat Fleischer, (The Ring Magazine). According to Fleischer, Brothers spent several weeks hunkered down in The Ring Magazine's New York offices studying over all the available resources, focusing on the Ring Record Book(s) as her main source.

In an interview, after the competition ended, Nat Fleischer hinted that Brothers had some sort of eidetic memory, (not his word) stating that she could read a page of statistics and then repeat the page back almost verbatim; this she did with thousands of pages of information.

Here is the $64,000 (multi-part) Question Dr. Joyce Brothers answered correctly.

  1. What were the gloves of Roman gladiators in the Coliseum called?
  2. Who was the first scientific boxer, heavyweight champion of England in 1791?
  3. What was the name of the heavyweight champion of England who taught a famous poet the art of boxing?
  4. Who wrote the famous essay 'The Fight' after having seen Bill Neat defeat Tom Hickman for the English heavyweight title in 1821, and what was Hickman's nickname?
  5. What was the full name of the Marquis of Queensberry, who set up the Queensberry rules?
  6. In 1933, Primo Carnera defended the world heavyweight title abroad. Who was his opponent, and where did they meet?
  7. How many times did Jack Dempsey floor Luis Firpo in their famous fight in New York? How long did the fight last, within 30 seconds?

* The $64,000 Question seems to have been a clean show, it was only after the show reappeared under a different name, The $64,000, Challenge that the show got dirty; Patty Duke, a child actress who had competed on The $64,000 Challenge testified before Congress that she had been coached; and of course the show 21 we now know, thanks to the film Quiz Show, was a complete fraud

The Answers

1. Cestus

2. Daniel Mendoza

3. John “Gentleman” Jackson (The poet was Lord Byron)

4. William Hazlitt / Hickman’s nickname: “Gaslight”

5. John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (John Graham Chambers of the British Amateur Athletic Club, actually wrote the rules)

6. Paulino Uzcudon / Rome

7. 9 Knockdowns / three minutes and 57 seconds

P.S. Captain. Richard S. McCutchen of the U.S. Marine Corp, the show's first big winner, on the topic of cooking, was also exonerated of any wrong doing.