Alex, I'll Take Wendell Wilkie for $400

I was talking to Rambler's brother Friday afternoon and the conversation, in a weird turn, made its' way to Wendell Wilkie. I'm really not sure how we managed to get to a topic like that, probably just my mind drifting away. Why Wendell Wilkie on such a wonderful day? I'm not sure why and it probably doesn't matter anyway.

We don't often sit around and talk about losers of presidential elections, especially a loser from 1940. However, Wendell was a Hoosier from Elwood, and IU does have the Wilkie Quadrangle named for him, so that's a good enough reason for me to talk about old Wendell.

Wendell was an interesting character with a penchant for politics and a purported propensity for extra-marital affairs. His philandering would have put poor old Bill Clinton to shame. There was an old story told about Wendell visiting China and having a dalliance with Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. According to some sources, the wife of the Chinese President tried to seduce him and had told Wendell that if they could marry, she would rule the oriental world while he would rule the western world. I'm not sure about the veracity of that tale, it sounds somewhat suspicious, but amusing, nonetheless.

I then asked Dustin if he had ever heard of Charles Van Doren and he said he didn't recall hearing of him. That wasn't really surprising because Van Doren's personal claim to fame dated to the 1950's and Dustin is much younger than me. Charles was a contestant on a quiz show called "Twenty-One" back in the 50's and won well over $100,000. That was quite a handsome sum of money back then. A check of my personal financial portfolio would indicate that it is an impressive chunk of money, even today.

Charles Van Doren was a very intelligent individual, who, at the time of the show, was a professor at Columbia University. The history of the Van Doren family was filled with many intellectual accomplishments. His father had won a Pulitzer for poetry and his mother was a novelist and his uncle Carl Van Doren, had been a professor at Columbia and had also won a Pulitzer.

The fact that Charles won so much money on a TV game show doesn't, in and of itself, offer much of a reason for celebrity status, however, the way he won the money ensured his place in history. At least a place big enough that Robert Redford would want to make a movie about him. Back in the mid-nineties, Redford made a movie called "Quiz Show", starring Ralph Fiennes. For you Harry Potter fans, Ralph Fiennes played the evil Lord Voldemort. The reason behind the film was the scandal perpetuated by the NBC executives producing the show. The entire show was a setup with people like Charles being given the answers in advance. By the way, it is a pretty good movie, if you can find it.

So you are probably wondering, as was poor Dustin, just what in the heck does this have to do with Wendell Wilkie. OK, hold on to your collective horses, I'm getting there. Charles' uncle Carl had an ex-wife by the name of Irita Van Doren, who became quite fond of Wendell Wilkie in more ways than one. Irita was the book editor for the New York Herald, which carried a lot of influence in some societal circles. She and Wendell carried on an affair for several years and she worked hard to get Wendell to the White House by writing and editing his speeches. Unfortunately for Irita and all of her efforts, Wendell got whipped pretty badly by FDR in 1940 and failed to even get the Republican Party nomination at the 1944 convention. Wendell died shortly thereafter in October of 1944 after a series of heart attacks.

So now, if you are invited to participate in a quiz show, like Jeopardy, or just sitting around watching with it your friends and the right answer appears about Wendell Wilkie, you may know the question.