Evening star., 1955-07-31
BY CHARLES MERCER

NEW YORK, July 80 P1.-
The $64,000 question of the
week is: How do they think up
the $4,000 questions?
Although this show (CBS-
TV, Tuesday evenings) has de-
veloped into a thriller for sew
eral million persons, its pro-
ducerS are not acting like Sc
cret agents about the way it
operates. But they're certainly
top secret about the questions
themselves.
Climb to the penthouse Of
fees Of Louis G. Cowan, Inc,
producers Of the program, and
meet a pair Of bEains-the
cool, lofty intelligence Of DR..
Bergan Evans, professor of
English at Northwestern Uni
versity, Chicago, and the rest
less, incisive mind of Steve
Carlin. executive producer.
If you could read their
minds it would be worth $64,-
o00--less taxes--to you.
The man who thinks up most
Of the agonizing questions Is
DIR. Evans. an erudite former
Oxford scholar who has ap-
piled his wide knowledge of
many subjects to many medi-
unns: Lecturing, writing books
and - currently - serving as
master of ceremonies ON the
quiz show Down You Go"
Saturdays. CBS-TV. Every
Friday Evans leaves the Sc
cluded calm of his Winnetka,
ILL.,, home and planes into the
frenetic world Of New York
television.
A Real Authority
He brings with him in a
locked briefcase questions
which he has worked up in
his library. In a locked Office
high above Madison avenue
he and Carlin sit down and 20
over the questions, rephras-
ing them for clarity, tossing
away some and revising others.
"Bergan is really an author
ity on nearly everything" says
Carlin. He knows lot about
physics and zoology. for exam
pie, but he modestly claims
he's not an authority on them.
So we've gone to specialists in
certain fields and asked them
for questions which we work
into shape. I couldn't possibly
tell you the names of those
people. They've forbidden use
of their names. They'd be
bounded to death"
When the questions are in
shape. Carlin destroys all notes
and personally types out the
questions, one to a slip of
paper. TITS a pain in the
neck" he says. "and takes up
too much time, but we don't
dare take a chance on a leak.
He places each question in a
separate envelope. marked
with a code number, and puts
all the unsealed envelops into
a larger envelope which he
seals and takes personally to q
bank vault. At the bank he
sits down at a table facing an
assigned bank official and goes
through each envelope to make
sure it contains the proper
question before sealing it. The
bank official, who personally
places the envelopes in the
vault, never sees the questions
Leaks Not Possible
"One of our nightmares Is
that Hal March, the master
of ceremonies, will open an
envelope on the show and find
the wrong question inside,
Carlin says. That's why ]
double-check. Under this care
full system we now know that
a leak could come from only
three sources - Evans, the
bank official and myself. Sc
we aren't worried. All of us
know it would be the death o1
the show if there ever were
any leaking Of information.
There are "a categories oi
questions. To attain the tor
$64,000 prize--a feat no one
has yet performed--one woulc
have to answer II questions
correctly. Carlin and Evan
keep two sets of IL questions
for each category in the vault
When the two decided II
place the category Of the
Bible In the quiz, for exam
pie. Evans. an authority o.