Arts & Entertainment

North Shore Jeopardy Champ Talks Money, Favorite Categories and a Note from John Irving

Wilmette's Julia Collins is the second winningest player on the quiz show, after a 20-game winning streak ended in May.

Julia Collins had really been hoping for a musicals category on Jeopardy, but it didn’t appear until the day after she ended her record-setting winning streak in May, according to an interview with the Wilmette resident in Chicago Magazine.

With a 20-game winning streak, Collins became the second winningest player in the show’s history and the top woman contestant. She took home more than $400,000.

Collins, who grew up in Kenilworth, talks to Chicago Magazine about what she’s going to do with her winnings (invest most of it, but she did splurge on a month in France); how she’ll prep for the Tournament of Champions (go to her family’s house in Lake Geneva where the TV reception is bad); and how she got a nice note and book from author John Irving, who was the subject of the Final Jeopardy question that she missed.

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