Threadlines: Two Millionaires, a Fraud and a Genius

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The quiz show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire operates under a simple and thrilling proposition - answer 15 trivia questions in a row, and you can become an instant millionaire. 

Over the course of the show's run, it has become a cultural phenomenon and remains one of the greatest game shows and simply, television shows in history. 

As evidence of the program's cultural import, if you've ever heard someone quip that they want to "phone a friend" or ask someone "is that your final answer", those phrases can be linked directly back to this television show.

After premiering in the United Kingdom in 1998, it quickly became a British phenomenon, pulling over 19 million nightly viewers. Soon, ABC in the US took notice and picked up the show to begin airing an American adaption, hosted by Regis Philbin. From there, the show has grown into an internationally viewed and recognizable icon.

Today, we are going to look back at the two most enduring and engaging characters that emerged from the decades of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. One man who became so obsessed with winning a million, at any cost, that it drove him to fraud, and one who conquered the show with grace and genius.

Let’s start with an overview of the show and how it functions.

Who Wants To Be a Millionaire premiered in the United Kingdom in 1998 for the ITV Network. 

The format begins with the "Fastest Finger" round, in which several contestants race to arrange a set of items or events in the correct order. The first contestant to correctly place the items or events in the right sequence proceeds to the main game.

In the main game, contestants are asked increasingly difficult questions by host Christ Tarrant and must choose the correct answer from four options. They have three lifelines to help them along the way: "Ask the Audience," where the audience votes on the correct answer; "Phone a Friend," where they can call someone for assistance; and "50:50," which eliminates two incorrect answers. Contestants can walk away with their current winnings at any point, but if they answer incorrectly, their prize money drops back to a predetermined level. The ultimate goal is to reach the final question and win the million-dollar prize.

It was a pure, simple quiz show, and it was wildly successful. Over the coming decades, the show would be adapted by 120 countries, win 7 Emmys, and produced some of the some of the most captivating moments of television ever seen.

Here are two of those stories.

In the early 2000s, with Who Wants To Be a Millionaire near the zenith of its popularity, a trio of Brits, Major Charles Ingram, his wife Diana Ingram, and Diana's brother, Adrian Pollock took notice of the show and it's potential riches. The group tuned in weekly, started studying trivia on their own time, and dreamed of one day making it on the show. There was also the underlying financial incentive given that each member of the trio was deeply in debt, with the Ingrams reportedly about £50,000 in debt.

Fanaticism and debts may have sparked fraud plan | The Independent | The Independent

Soon enough, the dream of making it on the show quickly turned into a fanatic obsession, as they spent thousands of pounds dialing into the audition phone line. 

Months of effort - and over 1700 phone calls - led to Adrian being the first of the group to be invited to sit on the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire stage. However, getting invited to the show is only the first step.

Adrian played well, all things considered. He answered 10 questions correctly. On the 11th question, he used two lifelines on the question "In the USA and Canada, Labor Day is celebrated in which month?"

Upon receiving some guidance from his Phone-A-Friend to go with May (it's September), Adrian locked in the incorrect answer, and his run came to end. For his efforts, Adrian was sent home with £32,000. Nothing to sniff at, but not what he came for.

Four months following Adrian's appearance on the show, Diana Ingram was called up to compete in the Fastest Finger. She earned her way into the Hot Seat, and embarked into the gauntlet of questions that she hoped would make her a millionaire.

But Diana only made it to the 11th question where her run ended after she answered "Edward Lear" for the question "Who wrote the nonsense poem, 'The Hunting of the Snark'?" They were looking for "Lewis Carrol". With this, Diana was sent home at the exact same level her brother was - £32,000 and 10 questions answered.

So, the trio's hopes rested on the shoulders of Charles. He began to "practise for 20 minutes a day on a mock "Fastest Finger First" keypad, constructed by Mr. Pollock."

Charles soon made his way through the phone selection process and the in-person test, finding his way to the hot seat. However, things were almost immediately shaky. Through the first 7 questions - which are not designed to be that difficult - Charles was forced to use two of his lifelines and overall did not seem confident in many of his answers.

As production wrapped for the day, the sentiment shared by everyone on set was simple - this guy was not going to make it much further.

Then a miracle occurred. 

The next day, Charles Ingram somehow, someway, answered the increasingly difficult 8 questions, making his way to a million.

You may be able to guess what happened.

As a subsequent and high-profile court proceeding would determine, over the second day of filming, the Ingrams, alongside another accomplice, Tecwen Whittock, conspired to brazenly cheat their way to win a million pounds.

Angus Harrison explained for Vice, the trio had devised "a system to carry Ingram to the higher reaches of the game. The Major would read the four possible answers, and Whittock would cough after the correct one. On hearing the cough, the Major would know he had said the right one and proceed to offer this answer."

It sounds ridiculous in theory, and in practice, it absolutely was. 

Take a look at this footage where Charles Ingram is faced with the question "Who had a hit UK album with 'Born To Do It', released in 2000?" One of the answers, Craig David, Charles quickly rules out since he has never heard of him.

Almost settling on "A1" as his final answer, Charles deliberates, reading out the answers again. But this time he hears a well-timed cough as he says "Craig David." So, he pulls a 180, changed his mind and instead locked in Craig David - the one artist he had never heard of - as his final answer, which turned out to be correct.

Watching back the rest of Charles' run is a surreal experience, as he stumbles his way to a million pounds, you can audibly hear coughs and even a clear "No!" as Charles again gets close to locking in the right answer. Armed with this brazen help, Charles answered every question correctly and the show wrapped with the host Chris Tarrant, excitedly calling him "the most amazing contestant we have ever, ever had".

However, following the conclusion of the episode, the staff was immediately suspicious. By the time the Ingrams had left the set, an investigation had already been launched into Charles' miraculous ability to answer questions he seemingly had no clue about.

This investigation resulted in the production team accusing Charles Ingram of conspiring with his wife and Tecwen Wittock to cheat to procure the correct answers throughout the course of the show.

The case went to trial and was subsequently followed by millions with great interest. Throughout the high-profile court proceedings, the crew of the show showed the jury the many instances of well-timed coughs that coincided with Charles Ingram's meticulous reading of all 4 answers, and subsequent choosing of the correct one.

Amusingly, all the talk of coughing must have had some sort of psychosomatic effect on the jury, as the verdict of the trial had to be delayed due to fits of coughing throughout the 12 jurors.

After a break, the Ingrams and Whittock were found guilty "of procuring the execution of a valuable security" by deception and received subsequent 18-month prison sentences and were, of course, stripped of the £1,000,000 prize.

Following the conclusion of the trial, the Ingrams were subjected to constant coughing by members of the public, and Charles was named the "Coughing Major". 

Reflecting on this fantastic tale, Angus Harrison wrote, "the story of the Coughing Major is a tale as timeless in morality as it is peculiarly rooted to the moment in space and time within which it occurred. The army man's attempt to steal a million pounds on television, with little more for help than sheer dumb luck and a terrible fake cough, is a fascinating incident even today. Grotesque in its stupidity, tragic in its context, hilarious in its execution."

It's a fitting description of a fascinating crime of obsession and desperation, inspired by a gargantuan prize promised by a reality television show at the zenith of its popularity. A very public attempt to steal a million pounds.

With that, we can turn to our other story, of a man who similarly answered fifteen questions in a row.

The details are just a bit different.

We turn our attention to the United States' version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. 

An IRS agent tunes in with some friends to watch the quiz show that's sweeping the nation. He is uninterested at first, but he quickly realizes that he is having little to no trouble answering the questions on the show. 

As the folks in the hot seat progress from the small amounts and approach the million, this man, John Carpenter, continues to have no problem answering along. He recalls, "we turned it on and I couldn't believe how easy the questions were. And it wasn't just the first few, either. I decided I had to try to get on."

So, he decides to try his hand at the million. He calls in to the hotline, and on the first try, answers all the questions correctly. Within two days, he's sitting on the set of the show.

Soon enough, John wins Fastest Finger and is subsequently called up to the Hot Seat.

Over the next hour, audiences at home were treated to an absolute clinic of trivia knowledge. Question after question, this IRS agent confidently answered correctly, again and again. On top of this, John found himself not needing to use a single lifeline. 

The only question that gave him a brief pause was, "In what U.S. town did the famous 1881 shoot-out at the O.K. Corral take place?" However, after remembering the 1993 film, Tombstone, and how it featured the O.K. Corral shootout, he was able to correctly answer the question, locking in "Tombstone, Arizona".

Before long, John was sitting on winnings of $500,000 and one question away from the coveted million-dollar grand prize.

At this point in the show's run - November 1999 - no one on either the British or American show had even got to this point. The most anyone had won was Jonathan Green's 13-question run which earned him £250,000 on the British version earlier that year.

BBC News | ENTERTAINMENT | Taxman scoops a million (archive.org)

So, all eyes turned to John Carpenter as the final, 15th question was read out - "Which of these U.S. Presidents appeared on the television series Laugh-In?"

John takes a breath, and chuckles a bit, and then asks to use his Phone-A-Friend lifeline to call his dad. As his dad picks up the phone, John tells him "Hi Dad, I don't really need your help, I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to win the million dollars."

As the audience cheers, John locks in "Richard Nixon" and for the first time, the titular question of the show is answered. John Carpenter became an instant millionaire.

In the mania following this, John and his wife were thrust into the spotlight. They took a vacation to Paris. John decided against quitting his job at the IRS, stating "after the taxes, it's not change-your-life kind of money if you want to eat every day." 

Moreover, John predicted that "The money doesn't change your life. What happens afterwards might."

John's incredible appearance on the show resulted in much recognition and fame, with John appearing as himself on a Saturday Night Live sketch, being invited to Good Morning America and Oprah, and even publishing his own book of trivia quizzes. 

Half a year after his original run, he was invited back to a special champions edition of the show, where he got through 13 questions correctly before tapping out at the 14th, taking home a quarter of a million dollars and making him one of the winningest game show players in television history with net winnings of $1,250,000.

After all of this fanfare slowed down though, by all accounts, John Carpenter returned to a normal, quiet life with his wife - over a million dollars richer.

These two stories are both uniquely and perfectly simple. 

Charles Ingram was obsessed with winning a million, so much so that he was willing to cheat his way there, in an extremely public venue. 

John Carpenter was the first person who was able to stand up to the simple premise of the show - answer 15 questions in a row, and you can win a million. He did so triumphantly.

Charles and John are perfect characters to highlight the appeal of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. The show took hold of viewer's consciousnesses through simple storytelling that led to fantastic moments of tension.

Through every question that was answered, every lifeline that was used, every time a contestant decided to exit the show with their money, and every time a contestant risked answering a difficult question, the tension was palpable.

To win a million, just answer 15 trivia questions. Because of that simple premise, we tuned in.

As viewers tuned in, we were witness to some of the greatest, most suspenseful moments of television that we have ever seen. 

And so, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, along with Charles Ingram and John Carpenter, will go down in television and pop culture history.