Throwback Thursday: See Commack woman’s 1976 ‘Pyramid’ win
The victory bottle of Champagne from Deborah K. Herman's 1976 "$20,000 Pyramid" win finally prompted her to share the tape of her victory for the masses. Credit: Handout
Deborah K. Herman keeps an empty Champagne bottle in the dining room of her Commack home — a relic that finally prodded her to share her 1976 “$20,000 Pyramid” win with the masses.
Saturday will mark the 37th anniversary of Herman’s win on the show, hosted by Dick Clark. After looking at the bottle recently she finally sat down and taught herself how to upload video of her appearance onto YouTube. She shared the video on Facebook as a “Throwback Thursday” post, a popular social media theme.
Herman remembers that VCRs had just come out and her family didn’t have one at the time, so she paid a local production company “a fortune” to tape the episode. She got a Betamax tape that she had converted a few years ago.
The episodes, taped on Oct. 26, 1976 at ABC Studios in Manhattan, aired on Nov. 1 and 2 of that year. Herman, 19 at the time and living in Oceanside, got tickets to a show taping the month before at the student center while attending Brooklyn College. Once there audience members were invited to sign up for auditions. She ended up on the show with Clark and celebrity guest players Phyllis George — a Miss America winner and longtime CBS “NFL Today” reporter — and the now-deceased David Groh, an actor best known for his role on the ’70s TV sitcom “Rhoda.”
Herman said Clark was “very, very sweet,” and later added of the three, “It was exactly like you see it [on the tape], they were warm and wonderful. They didn’t usually have someone so young on there.”
Herman, publisher of Building Long Island magazine, finally won the $20,000 on her fourth attempt at winning a grand prize.
Check out her grand-prize winning episode above. Go to 20:58 of video two to watch Herman’s win and find out what she planned to buy for her parents’ home. Her first episode is below.
What "Throwback Thursday" memory are you about to share on social media? Newsday wants to know. Email litowns@newsday.com and you just might end up in our Long Island Now blog.
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