FRANK SPANGENBERG

Date of First Appearance:            
January 1990

Total Winnings:
My first five shows totaled $102,597.   I was on Super Jeopardy and in the Tournament of Champions for my year, but was eliminated in the first round of the one, and the second round of the other, and do not recall what I took home.   I won the Tenth Anniversary Tournament in 1993; it had a prize of $25,000 plus winnings from the last two shows, and I think I took home about $47,000 from that.   I was eliminated in the first round of the Million Dollar Masters Tournament, and so took home $10,000.   My total winnings all together are therefore about 170,000 or 180,000.

Records held/stats
During my initial appearance in 1990 I set a five-game record of $102,597.   This record was reached under the old rules (that is, in addition to a five-game limit, the top value for a question in Double Jeopardy was $1,000), and lasted from 1990 until 2003, well after the dollar value of questions had been doubled.   At one time I also held the one-day record with a total of $30,600 won on my last show, but this record did not last nearly so long.

Favorite anecdote about being on the show:
I won the Tenth Anniversary Tournament in 1993 by being able to name Wendy Wasserstein as one of the three female playwrights who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in the 1980's.   Wendy then contacted me and took me out to dinner - she said that her family and friends made more of a fuss about her being a Final Jeopardy answer than she did about winning the Pulitzer Prize, and she wanted to meet the man who knew her name.

Did being on Jeopardy affect my life?
It removed - for a surprisingly long time - a great deal of the everyday anonymity we all take for granted.