Hello, first time commenter, long-time Jeopardy! fan with a note about a past Jeopardy! champion that I believe may be optimal to bring up on this thread. I am an avid fan of the public radio quiz show Says You! (
http://www.saysyou.net), where two teams of three panelists play games generally about words, definitions, and lexicography (think elements of My Word! on BBC Radio and The Liar's Club). It aired on NPR affiliates from 1997-2021 and still gets aired in reruns on some affiliates and on podcasting services. One of the many guest panelists over the years is Dr. Stuart Mushlin, a Boston-area internal medicine doctor, Harvard Medical School professor, and author. Seven episodes are available to stream online for free featuring Stuart as a panelist (always teamed up with his wife, regular panelist Francine Achbar), and this episode introduction by then-host Richard Sher caught my attention:
He's a former undefeated Jeopardy! champion, finally,
finally in the big time, Dr. Stuart Mushlin! (link:
https://beta.prx.org/stories/142279. They tagged it as SY-903 from this re-airing, I'm fairly certain it's actually the premiere of season 7 in 2003)
This got me looking up the name, as I didn't recognize a Stuart Mushlin as a Jeopardy! champion of renown. Assuming Richard's introduction was accurate, that would mean that Stuart was at least a retired 5 day champion, but all 5 day champions are accounted for on the modern version, as are anyone who won a tournament that didn't play in the Tournament of Champions. The last name Mushlin has no JBoard or J-Archive hits, and the only Google hits for "Stuart Mushlin" and "Jeopardy" that firmly referenced the show came from Says You!'s website, and not in any detail. I next looked up surviving records on the Art Fleming versions, and the name doesn't come up as a match on this thread of the 1964-1975 Tournament of Champions competitors unless his name wasn't recorded in surviving materials or he wasn't invited for one reason or another (thusly keeping him undefeated).
However, I did find the tape traders listing for a 1979 Tournament of Champions finals game between contestants named Stuart, Todd, and Phillip that taped in December 1978. The episode was allegedly posted on YouTube once but I didn't find it there in a quick search. Pictures of Stuart Mushlin more recently can be found on medical pages if that is of any use. According to HealthGrades.com, Stuart is 75 years old, which would make him around 30 years old during the 1978 ToC tapings. I believe his Jeopardy! run was referenced on Says You! episodes beyond the S7 E1 introduction, but in the context of "Ask Stuart, he was a Jeopardy! champion", not so much an interview, as they always got by more on friendly camaraderie wrapped around the game proper. If anyone wants to poke around the freely streamable episodes that he's in for a relevant reference, the others are episodes 1-4 of season 19 and in episodes 3-4 of episode 20, and all can definitely be heard on PRX. Stuart was in more episodes than this, but most episodes from seasons 1-17 are not currently available to stream for free, and he did not appear on the show after S20 E4, which aired in late 2016. He was at least in episode 4 of season 13 too, but but that is only available as a paid download at the moment.
Apologies if this got long-winded, I just figured it was worth sharing the possibility that the winner of the 1979 Tournament of Champions may have been identified (thusly confirming Richard Sher's announcement that Stuart was an undefeated Jeopardy! champion), though the possibility exists that this Stuart just had the same first name, and Stuart Mushlin's run came too late in 1975 or 1979 before either version ended to qualify for a ToC. Maybe the tape of the 1979 finals episode gave last names, but on tape trading sites that list this episode that I found, they don't give that much detail, and this thread doesn't include an entry on the 1979 season's ToC. That's all that I've got, but I do recommend listening to Says You!, it is an amusing but very challenging program, I enjoy playing random episodes of it on long road trips and as background audio when volunteering at a local bookstore. Have a good day!