Thirty-eight years ago Herbert Stempel - just another bespectacled schmo from Queens - racked up $50,000 in winnings and became one of television's most celebrated quiz show contestants.
He asked if Stempel knew the longest word in the English language. 'Let's see if this guy's for real,' Todd remembers thinking. Everybody was chatting amiably at the dinner table when Krainin's son Todd suddenly pitched a fastball question at Herb. Last summer he and his wife were invited to the suburban New York City home of Julian Krainin, one of the producers of the new Robert Redford film 'Quiz Show,' so that actor John Turturro could get a close-up fix on the character he'd be playing. Honestly, isn't outsmarting a precocious college kid one of life's great pleasures? Ask Herb Stempel.
