Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991 TAG: 9104180314
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That's when he began his five-night odyssey on the television game show, "Jeopardy!"
Although, after his performance Wednesday, he's not so sure he wants the notoriety.
He finished $2,700 in the hole.
"My brother said I must have gotten brain-freeze or something," Albert said from his home in Salem overlooking Hidden Valley Country Club.
He watched Wednesday's debacle, which had been taped in February, with his wife, Gail, in their kitchen, where they religiously watch the show every night.
It was not a pretty sight.
On screen, he was getting beat to the buzzer right and left by some tall geek from California. And on the questions he did get to answer, most times he was dead wrong.
"I should've known this . . . " the 49-year-old attorney said in disgust, pointing to the small television screen like he was making a point to a jury.
The category was: Just Us Chickens.
"It's all downhill from here," he said as he watched himself miss the first question of the match.
The geek, an electrical engineer who studied in Paris for a year, meanwhile, was on his way to a rout.
By chance, it happened that two other categories on this particular night dealt with electricity and French cuisine.
"About the closest I come to French cooking is french fries," Albert said.
In "Jeopardy!", he said, sometimes luck has more to do with winning than anything. "Like, I walked out there on the third night with a kid who had a pony tail and rock lyrics came up. I mean, give me a break."
He shook his head as he missed another.
"Well, that's nice. I'm at $900 in the hole, baby," he said, turning to Gail. "Ooh, this gets ugly."
Like a lopsided basketball game, he said.
"When you play catch-up, like I had to, it gets pretty rough. You start throwing up those 3-pointers," he said. "I started guessing, and when you guess it's death."
But Wednesday aside, Albert fared pretty well, overall, walking away the winner the four previous shows and coming home with $39,001 in prize money.
Actually, he won't receive the cash until August, and even then, he expects the tax man will take about half.
"Really, I'm just tickled to death that I did so well. When I won that first game, I was elated. If that's all I had won, I would have been very satisfied," he said.
He said it was a thrill just to compete.
"I've been watching `Jeopardy!' forever, for as long as it's been on television. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd do so well."
Now, he only hopes people will remember his four winning performances, and not Wednesday's massacre.
Either way, he said the experience has not gone to his head. Despite telephone calls to his home from complete strangers and being recognized on the street as the guy from "Jeopardy!", he said he doesn't feel like a celebrity - and certainly no better known than the Mill Mountain Star.
"I don't feel famous at all," he said. "All I know is that by watching me on TV, by now most everyone knows that I have no chin."
by CNB