American Essence

Charles Van Doren: Shame, Silence, and Redemption

This installment of ‘When Character Counted’ looks at the Ivy League celebrity who fell from grace and spent a lifetime making amends.
Charles Van Doren: Shame, Silence, and Redemption
Quiz show "Twenty-One" host Jack Barry (C) turns toward contestant Charles Van Doren (R) as fellow contestant Vivienne Nearing looks on. Library of Congress. Public Domain
Jeff Minick
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When 93-year-old Charles Van Doren died in 2019, odds are that a majority of Americans didn’t recognize his name. Of those who did, a few would have associated him with the many books he wrote or edited. Others, still a minority and mostly older, more likely recalled him as a key figure in the 1950s quiz show scandals, rigged programs where contestants were coached on the answers or given them outright.

But one man remembered every detail of that scandal. He never forgot nor completely forgave the disgraceful part Van Doren had played in that shameful affair.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.