In 1958, six Elf-names that had dropped out of the U.S. baby name data suddenly re-emerged. Altogether, they were given to more than 100 baby girls:
What caused this renewed interest in Elf-names?
Game show contestant Elfrida von Nardroff, who appeared on the infamous TV quiz show Twenty-One for 21 weeks straight in 1958.
Low-stakes game shows had been on television since the very beginning, but high-stakes quiz shows like Twenty-One didn’t emerge until the latter half of the 1950s, following a 1954 Supreme Court ruling that TV jackpots — awarded for answering questions correctly — did not constitute gambling.
The first high-stakes quiz show, The $64,000 Question, started airing weekly on CBS in June of 1955. An instant hit, The $64,000 Question dethroned I Love Lucy to become the most-watched program in the nation during the 1955-56 television season.
Among the many quiz shows that followed was Twenty-One, which premiered on NBC in September of 1956.
Described as “the most demanding and sophisticated of all quiz shows” by Time magazine, Twenty-One featured two contestants — a champion and a challenger — who stood inside separate isolation booths (and could therefore neither hear nor see one another). The contestants took turns answering trivia questions asked by host Jack Barry. The first contestant to reach 21 points was the winner.
Elfrida von Nardroff, a 32-year-old personnel manager from Brooklyn (and the daughter of a Columbia University physics professor), first appeared on the show in February of 1958. She won, and viewers followed along as she kept winning, week after week:
- On March 10th (her 4th appearance) Elfrida “defeated a lawyer and a foreign service officer…to run her prize money to $70,000.” The questions she answered were about “U. S. Presidents, English literature, Africa and the 1920s.”
- On April 7th (her 8th appearance), Elfrida “topped the $100,000 mark.”
- On May 26 (her 15th appearance), Elfrida’s winnings were up to $216,500. The New York Times noted that she was now “the biggest money winner on a single television quiz program.”
- On June 9 (her 17th appearance), Elfrida “breezed through questions of fictional romance and musical composers…to run her earnings to $248,000.”
- In mid-June, NBC president Robert W. Sarnoff noted that “millions” of new viewers had tuned in to the show thanks to newspaper coverage of Elfrida’s progress.
- On June 23 (her 19th appearance), Elfrida’s winnings were up to $253,500.
- On July 7 (her 21st appearance), Elfrida “faltered on a question about a Nazi leader” and was finally defeated by her challenger (a high school administrator).
She walked away with $220,500 — “the most money ever won on a television show” at that time — and Twenty-One finished 18th in the Nielsen ratings for the 1957–58 season.
In the months that followed, however, the public discovered that many of TV’s quiz shows had been rigged. While there were no laws prohibiting the fixing of game shows, the allegations caused ratings to plummet, and the networks began pulling these shows off the air. (Twenty-One was canceled in mid-October.)
In August of 1958, the Manhattan district attorney convened a grand jury to investigate television quiz shows. About 150 people (a mix of contestants and employees) testified before the grand jury over the course of nine months. Two-thirds of the witnesses — Elfrida included — denied under oath that the shows had been fixed. Manhattan Assistant D.A. Joseph Stone later wrote,
Nothing in my experience prepared me for the mass perjury that took place before the first grand jury investigating TV quiz rigging, on the part of scores of well-educated people who had no trouble understanding what was at stake. Several of them in fact had law degrees.
In October of 1959, the House Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight began its own investigation of television quiz shows. About a year later, acting upon the committee’s recommendation, Congress added an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 that made it a federal offense “to rig a ‘purportedly bona fide’ contest of knowledge, skill, or chance.”
In late 1960, twenty former quiz-show winners, including Elfrida, were arrested and charged with second-degree perjury. Elfrida eventually pled guilty and received a suspended sentence.
The name Elfrida can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon name Ælfþryð, which is made up of Old English elements meaning “elf” and “strength.” What are your thoughts on the name?
Sources:
- Wikipedia: Elfrida von Nardroff, Twenty-One (game show), 1950s quiz show scandals, House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight
- US TV Nielsen Ratings – The Classic TV Archive (CTVA)
- “Elfrida Winnings Soar To $70,000.” Napa Valley Register 11 Mar. 1958: 4.
- “Tonight’s TV Tips.” Mirror News [Los Angeles] 14 April 1958: 10.
- “Lady with the Answers.” Time 12 May 1958.
- “New TV Quiz Champion.” New York Times 27 May 1958: 63.
- “Big Winners.” Roseville Press-Tribune 11 Jun. 1958: 7.
- Humphrey, Hal. “The ‘simmering’ and sensitive broadcasters.” Mirror News [Los Angeles] 23 Jun. 1958: 8.
- Ewald, William. “Television not the right medium to show off Russian dance company.” Marysville Democrat 30 June 1958: 22.
- “Elfrida Stumbles, Still Quiz Queen.” Hanford Sentinel 8 Jul. 1958: 10.
- Sandomir, Richard. “Elfrida von Nardroff, 96, Dies; Won Big Money on a Fixed Quiz Show.” New York Times 15 Dec. 2021.
- Stone, Joseph and Tim Yohn. Prime Time and Misdemeanors: Investigating the 1950s TV Quiz Scandal — a D.A.’s Account. NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
- Real, Michael R. Exploring Media Culture: A Guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996.
- Communications Act Amendments, September 13, 1960 – U.S. Capitol Visitor Center
- Elfreda – Behind the Name
- SSA
Images: Clippings from Life magazine (23 Jun. 1958) and the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine (Sept. 1959)
