Last winter, Dr. Melissa R. Klapper achieved the dream of a lifetime by becoming a three-time champion on “Jeopardy!” But the Baltimore native and Bais Yaakov School for Girls graduate wasn’t able to to strike gold again on Monday night, March 4, when appearing on the popular TV game show’s annual “Tournament of Champions.”
The tournament — which invites three-time champions from the previous season to compete against each other — was won by actor and “Celebrity Jeopardy!” champion Ike Barinholtz. Also participating was 13-game winner Ray Lalonde, a scenic artist from Toronto.
Dr. Klapper, a professor of history and director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, is a 1995 graduate of Goucher College in Towson and earned her doctorate in history from Rutgers University. She lives in Merion Township, Pennsylvania.
“This was a very exciting — though also nerve-wracking! — opportunity,” she wrote in an email. “I went to Los Angeles in early February for the tapings and greatly enjoyed the chance to get to know so many of last year’s champions.
“All the competitors certainly wanted the chance to win again, but we all also supported each other and truly cheered each other on.”
Dr. Klapper, Barinholtz and Lalonde were among 27 participants in the tournament who competed in a quarterfinal match, with only nine winners moving on to three semifinal matches. The three semifinal winners then played a series of final matches.
“All of the games were tremendously exciting, with the competitors’ knowledge, strategy and buzzer skills all determining the outcomes,” wrote Dr. Klapper, who won $60,000 last year on “Jeopardy!”
In a rare instance of success for a celebrity during the show’s regular competition, Barinholtz, 47, a graduate of Chicago’s Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, successfully answered a question about the ancient Roman poet Ovid to emerge victorious.
A native of the Windy City’s Lakeview community who has starred in such TV and movie comedies as “The Mindy Project, “The Afterparty” and Mel Brooks’ “History of the World Part II,” Barinholtz was stuck in second place going into the final round.
He had successfully fielded trivia questions on topics as wide-ranging as the rock band R.E.M., disgraced entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried and the late French President Francois Mitterand.
The “Final Jeopardy!” topic was Roman poets, and contestants were supplied the clue, “Far from Rome, this first century poet wrote, ‘The leader’s anger done, grant me the right to die in my native country.’”
After Lalonde answered the clue successfully, host Ken Jennings turned to Barinholtz, a versatile comedian who summoned expressions of apparent befuddlement throughout the round and betrayed no sign he also answered correctly.
With a bid of $13,801, Barinholtz catapulted into the lead and remained there after Dr. Klapper answered the clue incorrectly.
The victory means Barinholtz — who last year won three games of Celebrity Jeopardy! against comedian Patton Oswalt and actor Wil Wheaton — is headed into the semifinals of the tournament and will appear on another episode later this week.
But ever the good sport, Dr. Klapper summarized the tournament by saying, “The whole experience was inspiring and just fun in all the best ways.”
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