regis philbin was the million dollar winner who wanted to be a millionaire.
regis philbin was the million dollar winner who wanted to be a millionaire.
million dollar winner who wants to be a millionaire?
regis philbin
in 1999, mckee was passed by michael shutterly, who was the biggest winner in the first season of "who wants to be a millionaire" in the united states. shutterly was the first contestant on the show to get to the 15th and final question, but elected to walk instead with $500,000 which made him the biggest winner in american game show history at the time. shutterly had previously won $49,200 as a four-day champion on "jeopardy!" in 1988, making his career winnings total $549,200. on november 19, during the second season of "millionaire" in the united states, the show crowned its first million-dollar winner when john carpenter won the show's top prize without using any lifelines, save for a phone call on the final question, when he told tell his father he was going to win the million dollars. after carpenter answered the final question, which concerned richard nixon's appearance on "laugh-in" in 1968, host regis philbin proclaimed carpenter the show's (and worldwide format's) first top-prize winner. carpenter's record remained intact until the following year. in early 2000, rahim oberholtzer, a contestant on the revival of nbc's "twenty one," won four games in his appearances on the show, along with $120,000 in the show's "perfect 21" bonus round, for a total of $1,120,000. for surpassing carpenter's mark, then-host maury povich proclaimed oberholtzer "the tv game show king". late in its run, the fox game show "greed" brought back some of its previous winners to try for an extra $1,000,000. curtis warren, who was part of the first "team" to win $1,000,000 on the show (of which his share was $400,000, plus $10,000 for winning a terminator round), was one of the contestants brought back to do so on february 11, 2000. warren was given a question about tv shows that had been made into movies, with eight choices (of which he had to identify the four correct answers). he successfully did so, giving himself $1,410,000 and the record for the time being. warren's record was even shorter lived than oberholtzer's had been, lasting only four days. three days before warren's win, david legler, who also appeared on "twenty one," began a run as champion on the show. four days after warren's win, the run continued, with legler having earned a grand total of $1,765,000 in six wins to surpass warren's record and become the third contestant in two months to top $1,000,000 on a game show.
american game show winnings records
although the syndicated "millionaire" had produced two millionaires in its first season, nancy christy's may 2003 win was still standing as the most recent when the program began its eighth season in fall of 2009. deciding that six-plus years had been too long since someone had won the top prize, producers conducted a tournament to find a third million dollar winner. for the first nine weeks of the 2009–10 season, each episode saw contestants attempt to qualify for what was referred to as the "tournament of ten". contestants were seeded based on how much money they had won, with the biggest winner ranked first and the lowest ranked tenth. ties were broken based on how much time a contestant had banked when they had walked away from the game.
who wants to be a millionaire (american game show)