Moderation

It was the crucial week on CBS's The $64,000 Question. Everything turned on the decision of the show's current star, Mrs. Catherine E. Kreitzer, 54, Camp Hill, Pa. Bible student, mother of six sons, grandmother of nine. In three previous appearances, Grandma Kreitzer had answered ten questions about the Bible and won $32,000. Last week she had to decide whether she would take the $32,000 or let it ride on the chance of winning $64,000.

With more than 35 million people tuned in, Contestant Kreitzer came to the moment of decision and proved that she has a well-developed sense of both drama and humor. She briskly recalled how confident she had been that she would answer the $8,000, $16,000 and $32,000 questions. Then she serenely added: "And I am a little confident that I can answer the $64,000 question." The studio audience exploded into wild, sustained applause, certain that Grandma Kreitzer had decided to risk her winnings for the jackpot. "But," she continued as the applause died down, "I am balancing that confidence with a quotation from Ephesians, 'Let your moderation be known unto all men.' So I'm going to let my moderation be known and accept the $32,000."

After the show she let an error be known, too. Her quotation had come from Philippians rather than Ephesians. She also confided that she and her husband had no intention of spending her winnings at the same speed that she had won them. Said Winner Kreitzer: "I guess we'll probably put it away for our rainy days."

Louis G. Cowan, 45, the man behind The $64,000 Question, is probably the most prolific independent radio and TV package producer in the business. In the 15 years that Cowan has been producing packages--everything from conception and stars to script and sound cues--he has put at least 40 shows on radio and TV and won more than two dozen awards, including the Peabody Award twice. He now has five shows on the air.*

Cowan began his career as a producer in 1940 with the Quiz Kids, which ran for 14 years, earned him an annual profit in six figures. After the war, when Americans were hungry for domestic goods, he produced Stop the Music, the most lavish of the giveaway shows (refrigerators, washing machines, etc.). In between, he headed up the New York office of the wartime OWL As a personality, Cowan is a paradox: a soft-spoken huckster with a Ph.B., who is more apt to recount his failures than his successes.

Cowan's latest contribution to American culture, The $64,000 Question, was conceived one day last January in the library of his Manhattan apartment, when he sat down at his desk determined not to get up until he had thought of a "great" idea. His mind turned toward quiz shows and Mount Everest, and he thought that the Everest of quiz shows would be one with increasingly tough peaks to scale. Then he wondered what he could give as a commensurate reward to anyone who scaled the highest peak. He remembered an old giveaway show, Take It or Leave It, later known as The $64 Question. He said to himself, "$640?" No. "$6,400?" No. Then it came to him. He knew he couldn't miss with The $64,000 Question.

It is certainly not a miss, but it took work. Before allowing the show to go on the air, Cowan put it through 17 dry runs to smooth out the kinks. But the show is unpredictable anyway, since nobody can foretell what contestants will say, and the timing is uncontrollable. The essence of the show's appeal, Cowan thinks, is "reality." People watch it, he says, like a sports event, because nobody knows what will happen or how it will come out. How long will the "highly profitable" show run? Replies Producer Cowan with a smile: "As long as enough people keep looking at it."

* On TV: Down You Go, Fearless Fosdick, The $64,000 Question, Stop the Music (returning in the fall). On radio: Conversation, Murder at Midnight.

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