Jerry Frankel was a contestant on Jeopardy!

Jeopardy!

Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

in 1985, becoming a 5-time undefeated champion, winning $32,650 on the program and another $100,000 in the first Tournament of Champions

Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions

The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions is an annual tournament featuring the longest-running champions from the past season or seasons of the TV quiz show Jeopardy! The tournament began in the show's first season in 1964 during Art Fleming's tenure as host, and continued into the Alex Trebek era of...

 on that version.

Jeopardy!

In the Tournament of Champions, Frankel had a score of $3,300 in his quarter-finals match, but got one of the four wild card spots; that is the high scorers among non-winners. In the semi-finals, he ended Double Jeopardy! with a runaway lead of $8,900 but added only $100 in Final and became a finalist along with Steve Rogitz and Bruce Fauman. In the two-day finals, Jerry earned $18,501 and won the first $100,000.

Less than two years later, Jerry Frankel died of AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

, a worldwide epidemic at the time, in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

.