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Golenpaul's eye first fastened on Clifton Fadiman. They met on the bus. "I liked his voice," Golenpaul recalls. "He had culture, standing as a critic, was quick on his feet, and the show needed a little sadism anyway."
After Fadiman came F. P. A. (The late Alexander Woollcott scorned the proposition only to admit later on: "I thought it was a lousy idea. I was wrong.") Adams was adamant until Golenpaul asked:
"Who's the Merchant of Venice?" Said Adams, "Antonio." Said a gleeful Golenpaul: "I thought you'd say Shylock." Retorted a surprised Adams: "Is that what you want me to do and pay me for it?"
John Kieran was next. After his audition, someone observed: "There's a scholar with a Tenth Avenue accent." Said Kieran: "My God, I'd better clean up my enunciation." Golenpaul: "If you do, you're fired."
Oscar Levant was easy. He just wanted to know "how much."
Today Dan Golenpaul absorbs at least 20% of the $10,000 weekly fee that Heinz pays for the show. Tall, curly-haired, arrogant, he has a penchant for big cigars, for calling himself "a stormy petrel." Of his undeniably-successful Information Please he moans: "I should have got this ten years ago. I was robbed."
* The program gives $10 in war stamps and a Junior Encyclopedia Britannica to each question contributor, $57 in war bonds and savings stamps and a set of the Britannica for a question the experts cannot answer.