TV & VIDEO - Aug. 3, 1987

A team of contestants won $500,000 on a South African television quiz show--even though their final answer was wrong. John Smeddle, representing a five-family team, needed to answer one question Friday night to beat out 20 competitors and win the 1 million rand grand prize in the Operation Hunger Goldrush quiz show. He and his celebrity partner, Kingswood College (in Johannesburg) Headmaster Neil Jardine, were asked to name three of English King Henry VIII’s six wives. Smeddle answered Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon, both of whom are correct. But as the clock ticked down, Jardine added the name Jane Grey--an answer the judges immediately accepted as correct even though Grey was the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister and was never married to the English ruler.