Human Almanac

After starting in homely Midwest idiom ("I would sure appreciate appearing on your program"), the letter from St. Louis minced no words: "I have a remarkable memory . . . My knowledge is fabulous . . . amazing . . . monumental . . . I am a human almanac of information." The producers of the $64,000 Challenge felt skeptical about the letter and doubtful when, after repeated applications, they finally saw the writer, a $70-a-week supply clerk who quit school at 13. But by last week Theodore Nadler, 47, had lived up to his own billing, piled up $64,000 on the show, and was simultaneously taking on three challenging specialists--in ancient history, baseball and the Civil War.

Quizman Nadler's success is a triumph of mind over manner. On the kind of show that hallows what it calls the "upbeat" personality, he is an offbeat figure: a small (5 ft. 4 in., 152 Ib.) man with an oppressed air, an uneasy smile and a cocky way of blurting his answers. His pronunciation is occasionally mangled, e.g., Joan of Arc was "beautified" in 1909. And his replies are so swift and sure, so full of extraneous details that come gushing with almaniacal glee that the show's producers feared at first that the show would seem a put-up job.

Since he challenged all comers on any subject, Nadler has taken on five, lost only one game (he said that Beethoven's Fourth Symphony was in the key of B Flat Minor instead of B Flat*), and the show now has trouble persuading experts to risk their reputations against him. Nadler's opponents have generally surpassed him in schooling. He never went beyond the eighth grade at Mullanphy grammar school in St. Louis because he had to work to support his family. But he read hungrily, listened to radio music in his spare time, and found that "just about everything that interested me stuck." Without really trying, he says, he can rattle off the names and dates of any ruler in any major country through history, give the dates, forces employed and strategy of 500 historic battles, or hum entire symphonies. Thanks to his rare gift, Nadler currently may add as much as $192,000 to winnings that have already provided a $15,000 house for his wife and three sons. Beyond that, he can take his pick of offers that will lift him out of his clerk's job in the Army supply depot in downtown St. Louis.

* It opens in B Flat Minor, but is mostly in the major key.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.