Q & A
Page 33
As of the present, the record still shows that a duly constituted grand jury, one of the basic foundations of a democratic society, was treated almost with contempt. To judge by the available evidence, apparently many witnesses felt that going before a grand jury was just another little quiz game to which the answers could be rigged in advance.
Much more than the TV industry has been tarnished. The seriousness of the grand jury’s investigative role has been beclouded.
For many youngsters addicted to television, the Saint Claire case may be their first exposure to a genuine moral issue.
But the problem of television entertainment remains precisely what it was before the contestants showed up: how to make a practical case for higher standards in programming when the public will look at whatever it receives free of charge rather than turn a set off.
The Saint Claire episode, bad as it is, is but symptomatic of a disease in the radio and television world, a disease that seems sure to touch not only the whole gamut of programs from public speeches to private advertising, but to spread outward to all the innocent souls of our new videoland. It is a disease which permits things to be presented not quite as they are.
To the solution of that dilemma of the video age the quiz scandal and its aftermath may very well contribute nothing.
The Portland Oregonian—Had Kenyon Saint Claire not perpetrated his treason against the intellectual life, his family name might never have been discolored. On the other hand, had he never treasoned, could we be certain that Americans decades from now will remember the Saint Claire name at all?
By standing in that isolation booth, by erring so publicly, by being the kind of prodigal son that he is in this brave new world in which he lives, Kenyon Saint Claire has unwittingly made of himself and his family name a lasting symbol—a symbol of what we were, and what we became. We can be certain that decades hence, for those Americans looking back through the latter half of this century, the Saint Claire family will stand like a landmark, a collective lesser Rushmore perhaps, at a clear turning in our road as a nation and a people.
CONSEQUENCES FOR
SAINT CLAIRE
Text of N.B.C. Statement,
Swift Response by Columbia
Perjury Charges Likely
for Saint Claire and Others
Nov. 4, 1959—Following is the text of the statement issued yesterday by the National Broadcasting Company in announcing its dismissal of Kenyon Saint Claire:
In light of the facts that have now emerged, it is clear that Mr. Saint Claire abused the confidence of the viewing public as a performer as well as a quiz show contestant. As an example, more than a year ago, after the start of the New York District Attorney’s investigation, Mr. Saint Claire prepared a statement and requested permission to read it on the TODAY Show. …This statement is typical of the repeated assurances through which Mr. Saint Claire masked his participation in the rigging. On this record, we feel we cannot continue to present him over our facilities as a representative of N.B.C. …
Ousted by Columbia
Monday evening, the same day of Mr. Saint Claire’s Congressional testimony, the Columbia University Board of Trustees announced that they had accepted his resignation. …
New York D.A. Reviewing Situation
District Attorney Frank S. Hogan said yesterday that he would consult with a grand jury on the question of untruthful testimony given under oath in the grand jury investigations into the quiz shows.
“It would seem from the conflicting statements in Washington,” the prosecutor said, “that there was grand jury testimony given under oath which wasn’t true.”
Questioned about the possibility of a perjury indictment being returned against Kenyon Saint Claire, Mr. Hogan said:
“I can’t think of this in terms of one contestant. Many people appear to have lied.” He added, “We will use the full recourse of the law. Perjury is a serious crime and we so regard it.”
LIVING ROOM
The TODAY Show. Dave Garroway’s face full upon the screen in closeup. He speaks with strong emotion, even shedding tears: “I am still a friend of Kenyon Saint Claire. …I can only say I’m heartbroken. He was one of our family. We are a little family on this show, strange as it may seem. …Whatever Kenyon did was wrong, of course. I cannot condone or defend it. But we will never forget the Leonardo DaVinci notebooks or the poetry of William Blake which Kenyon left us with.
COMMENTATORS
“Later it was learned that Garroway’s outburst, though genuine, was taped several hours before its broadcast.”
“As a special bonus to the viewing public in a gesture to wipe the slate clean, NBC offered to donate time for a series of debates between the major Presidential candidates of 1960, which eventually resulted in the televised confrontations between Kennedy and Nixon. … Two adversaries faced each other and tried to give point-scoring answers to questions fired at them under the glare of Klieg lights.”12∗
EPILOGUE
LONGSHOT MAGAZINE, 1994
Jared Florence is a familiar face in front of the camera. One of our finest American actors of the last half-century, Florence has enjoyed his share of top-drawer roles in some of Hollywood’s most notable movies, a few of which are now regarded as modern classics. Over the last twenty years, however, with a string of infrequent but memorable films, Florence has distinguished himself as a fine American producer and director.
His newest directorial opus is Contestant, a morality tale about TV corruption at the top, set during a game show scandal of the 1950s. Opening this month in wide release, Contestant has already generated its fair share of Oscar buzz. Florence sat down with Longshot Magazine after the movie’s Washington D.C. premiere.
Q:
Mr. Florence, thanks so much for
taking the time to talk with Longshot.
A:
Happy to do it.
Q:
Your new film Contestant attacks
corrupt TV by looking at game show hoaxes
in the 1950s. Did you grow up watching
game shows yourself?
A:
Some, sure.
Q:
Did you watch Kenyon Saint Claire?13∗
A:
Well, who didn’t? I mean TV sucked you in.
Q:
It seems incredible that the real
Kenyon Saint Claire became a major celebrity.
A:
Worse. He became a role model.
Q:
I understand you did not have Saint Claire’s —
the real Saint Claire’s—cooperation on this project.
A:
We did not. You know, he’s never spoken
publicly about those events. Not in
the 35 years since they happened.
Q:
He’d lied under oath.
A:
He lied to TV audiences every night he
was on that game show. He lied to a grand
jury. He lied to Congress. And in real life—the
movie doesn’t show this part—but in real life
he was charged with perjury.
Q:
Did he go to jail?
A:
No, they suspended his sentence.
Same for the producers who’d lied.
They were symbolic charges, if anything.
And Saint Claire became a recluse. He moved to
Minneapolis for many years. Worked as
an encyclopedia editor out there. He’s
spent his life hiding and ashamed,
as far as anyone can tell.
Q:
Now, there’s been some early controversy in
reaction to Contestant, and the way you’ve chosen
to dramatize certain events.
A:
Well, it’s not a documentary. We’ve taken some creative
license, for dramatic effect. The idea is to make the story into
something that people will want to see. And maybe they’ll
learn something from it too, who knows? But the movie, any
movie, needs to be enjoyable to watch. I’m proud of the film,
but in the end, it’s entertainment—and any movie,
you know, needs to earn back its investment.
KENYON, 1992 (Age 66)
The phone call comes on a Sunday.
“Is this Kenyon Saint Claire?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Mister Saint Claire, my name is Alex Parksdale. I’m a film producer—”
“I’ll have to stop you right there, Mister Parksdale—”
“Wait now, if you’ll wait just a minute Mister Saint Claire, please, and let me just explain.”
Silence, while Kenyon holds the receiver to his ear.
“Mister Saint Claire? Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” says Kenyon. “I’m sure you’ve heard that I don’t grant interviews or—”
“I have heard that. At the very least, I want to let you know that we’re making a film—it’s in pre-production now—a film about the quiz show events.”
Another silence, then:
“I see.”
“It’s a drama, and I think you’d find that the story is very well handled, sir. It’s a Jared Florence production and Jared’s directing, so you can be sure that the story is in very good hands.”
“Well, thank you for calling.”
“Now, Mister Saint Claire, I understand your reticence all these years—myself and my team, we all do, and we respect that, and we respect your privacy, sir. However, if you were to give it some thought—”
“I can’t participate, I’m sorry.”
“If you were to just give it some thought, just consider being involved in the capacity of a consultant, well, we’d welcome your input.”
“I appreciate your calling, but I’m afraid I—”
“And Mister Saint Claire, the film is very well financed, I can assure you. We’d be prepared to offer you two-hundred thousand dollars.”
They have Sidney Winfeld’s cooperation, Parksdale told him.
“And we’d come to you, sir—the whole production team—no need for your contribution to be of a public nature, and no need for you to travel. We’re talking behind-the-scenes involvement only. Of course we would credit you…”
On an index card from her recipe box Kenyon writes the figure down for Ernestine, brings it to her.
$200,000
With the figure jointly in mind they walk together out across the field that Dad used to mow so proudly, then out along the property line and into the neighboring stand of trees where Kenyon, on their first summer in residence here, passed the months cutting a path through the beechwoods—first with axe and saw, then with scythe, then with mower. His shirts pleasantly sweat-soaked, his arms and hands rewardingly sore, Ernestine’s iced tea awaiting him back on the sun porch. The following summer he’d gathered and stacked the stones that make the rough-hewn wall which follows the path on one side. For a week or so their son Maynard had helped him, here on a visit from college: Mayney was just growing into his own strong limbs then, and he astonished his father and mother both, with his ease and assurance in work, conversation, and simple companionship. Somehow he’d become, in the three or four months since they’d seen him last, a man. He was studying mathematics. He hoped to teach.
These days, the stone wall is thick with moss, the many small crannies festooned with ferns, and in some places it needs repair. As they stroll alongside it, Kenyon steps away to inspect a spot where the rocks have tumbled. He stoops to fit a few back in place. Why so satisfying, the grit and clack of stones nestled one atop the other? Something about the vibration through the hands, and the sound in the ears. Stonechat. He’s heard of a bird with that name, they say it makes a call like stones knocked together. …
They amble along, he and Ernestine, hand in hand, their familiar woods enclosing them.
They don’t even discuss the figure, the money.
Parksdale said he would send a contract by overnight courier.
Somehow this man, whom Kenyon had never met—this quick, clipped voice in the phone—had brought the conversation to that. “Just for your consideration,” he’d told Kenyon. “What do you say? You can look it over and think about it, OK?”
The document arrives before lunch the next day. From the kitchen window they watch the brightly lettered van swooping in along the drive, the delivery man scurrying from van to doorstep, rapping the old iron knocker hard on its iron plate—and gone by the time Kenyon opens the door.
But there at Kenyon’s feet, in its slim cardboard mailer, is the contract.
Kenyon carries the contract through the parlor, stops in the kitchen to give Ernestine a kiss—she only glances at the mailer under his arm—and heads to the den. From the top drawer of Dad’s old desk he withdraws the letter opener. He pierces the cardboard corner, pries the blade upward along the mailer’s seam. The creamy contract paper is heavy in his hand. And in one smooth motion he tears the paper top to bottom and drops it in the waste can beside the desk.
SIDNEY, 2019 (Age 90)
But anyway, when the movie people called him up—what, twenty-five years ago—Sidney concluded he’d cooperate. They asked him, after all. He’d be a “Consultant” in the credits, they said, which OK, why wouldn’t he cooperate? Wasn’t it a chance, one more time, one more chance to make sure the record got straight? $30,000 they paid him too, which considering it wasn’t even like a part-time job, not nearly a commitment of that nature, well, who’d complain?
The movie wasn’t so bad either as far as Sidney thought. And because it was very well received Sidney found himself in some respects back in the limelight—kind of funny after thirty-odd years, but so it was.
There was something about the whole business however—something strange in the way his life just went right on but also in some respects never quite felt the same after that—after the movie and all.
For instance, every so often, even now, somebody or other’ll ask Sidney for his two cents on the whole brouhaha, the scandal and Congress and all that. It happens again today—a regular Wednesday and he’s at the coffee shop and somebody—an older fella of course, not too many younger folks even know the story anymore—this older fella, he recognizes Sidney, says he’s heard something about a book, like a fiction book, coming out, which this is the first Sidney’s heard of it, and so this fella asks in so many words, “What’s your two cents on that?” and Sidney, well, what can he do but shrug a little and tell the fella: “My two cents? My two cents is, first it was my life and then it was a movie and now it’s gonna be a book—like a novel? is that what you’re telling me?—and all I can say is, Why would you do that? It was already a movie, or didn’t you know? All anyone’s gonna say is, Oh that? Well, hell, there was already a movie about that. Believe me. This happened to me. This was my life, but now people say, Hey!—they say, Hey that’s like the movie!—they look at me and go, Wait, that was you? It’s like … it’s like once that picture’s on the screen all the rest is not so real anymore, you know?”
KENYON, 2019 (Age 92)
Nights now, Kenyon sleeps soundly in the back bedroom of the old family home, Ernestine by his side. They’ve grown old, and their Maynard has raised a family all his own. Twice a year Mayney and his wife Alberta come to visit. And sometimes their two daughters and son will come, if they can get away from their busy jobs in the city. They’ve always been thoughtful kids, those grandchildren, and their parents too. And even now they breathe such life into the place.
Kenyon�
�s own folks are long gone. Dad died in 1972, Mom several years after, 1980. And that’s when he and Ernestine left Minneapolis, moved back here to the old family farm. As for George, he moved into the old house on Bleecker Street, where he raised his own family. He still lives there, a widower now. Life in the city, he’s been saying for years, is not what it used to be.
Often now, on very still and cloudless nights like this one, for a long time before falling asleep Kenyon will lie with his head pitched back on the pillow, staring up past the curtain valance through the window glass at the moon as thoughts swim in and out of his mind. These nights the moon’s hard silver glints down on the farms and cities of Connecticut, on New York and Minneapolis and many places besides, places large and small with names Kenyon’s never heard—glints down, amidst everything else, on Kenyon’s own life, his loved ones, and all the anonymous people everywhere.
This moonlight, it’s almost too real to bear. It’s the clearest broadcast imaginable.
NOTES & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Attribution for Quotations in Q&A:
page
28 Good art weighs nothing: The Autobiography of Mark Van Doren
39 We call it trivia: Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings
39 Some people have said our contestants: Steve Carlin, TV quiz show producer, 1958
42 The rewards, I don’t need to tell you: The Selected Letters of Mark Van Doren
56 You want the viewer to react: Dan Enright, TV producer
64 The living rooms were hushed: Patricia Hampl, A Romantic Education
76 All that has been done: Constantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares
104 The emcee is not precisely dishonest: Clifton Fadiman, “Ladies & Gentlemen, Your Host”
108 Everyone knows who the sponsor is: Clifton Fadiman, “Ladies & Gentlemen, Your Host”
108 We’d sit in the sponsor’s meetings: Merton Koplin, TV producer
109 You cannot ask random questions: Edward Jurist, TV producer
109 Sponsor, agency, network: Clifton Fadiman, “Ladies & Gentlemen, Your Host”