Judith Keppel


Judith Cynthia Aline Keppel is a British quiz show contestant who was the first person to win one million pounds on the British television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. She has appeared on the BBC Two quiz show Eggheads since 2003.

Early life

Keppel's father, the Hon. Walter Arnold Crispian Keppel, was a lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm. The family moved around, thanks to various naval postings, before settling in London when Keppel was seventeen. She sat A-Levels at St Mary's School, Wantage, and then completed a secretarial course.
Keppel is a granddaughter of Walter Keppel, 9th Earl of Albemarle. Her great-grandfather, the 8th Earl, was the brother of George Keppel and the brother-in-law of Alice Keppel, a mistress of King Edward VII and the great-great uncle of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who is thus her third cousin. Through her grandfather, her ancestors include Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England, who were the subjects of her one million-pound question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Marriages

In 1964, at Chelsea, London, Keppel married her first husband, Desmond Corcoran, an art dealer with whom she had three children, Sibylla, Alexander, and Rosie, but they divorced in 1980. In 1985, she married secondly the comedy scriptwriter Neil Shand. They were separated in 1987.

''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?''

Keppel appeared on the 20 November 2000 episode of the UK edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, becoming the 12th winner in the world and the first in the UK to win one million pounds. At the time, she was a garden designer living in Fulham and was "struggling for money". Nonetheless, she had spent about £100 phoning the quiz show more than 50 times to secure a place. "BT rang me up and said, 'Do you realise your telephone bills are rising?'"
There was speculation at the time that the win was leaked to the press so that ITV would draw ratings away from BBC One which was showing the last episode of One Foot in the Grave in the same timeslot. However, the Independent Television Commission cleared Celador and ITV of the allegations.
Keppel now appears on the BBC Two quiz show Eggheads, where she and seven other quiz champions are pitted against five members of the public.