The $100,000 Question

Nine times in nine weeks a likable youngster named George L. Wright III had picked up his ukulele and gone from his modest Manhattan home to an NBC studio to appear in the TV giveaway show The Big Surprise (Sat. 7:30 p.m.). George was only 14, but he was after the $100,000 jackpot.

A fortnight ago George brilliantly handled five parts of a six-part question ranging from Bach to baseball, but he muffed the sixth part when he failed to identify the authors of Betty Coed, "a song of the '20s." It turned out that the song had been copyrighted in 1930, and so last week George got another chance at the jackpot.

He was asked to name a song of the '20s that would be played for him, and either to name two of its three authors or sing and play a chorus on his ukulele. George knew the song, Me and My Shadow, and he chose to sing a chorus. As the freckle-faced boy's clear soprano went with a slight quaver into 11 million homes, his father, mother, sister and brother had the look of people who might not survive the suspense. But at chorus's end the M.C. lifted the beaming boy in his arms, while George's ten-year-old brother wept.

Smiling George received a bankbook with one entry: $100,000. Three-quarters of the $25,000 to $30,000 left after taxes will go into a trust fund for his education; some will go to charity, some for presents for each member of his family. For himself, George just wants to buy one thing: a tiple (ten-string ukulele).

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