Celeste DiNucci

Celeste DiNucci (born 1961) was a contestant on . She won the ' in 2007. Due to this victory, and the tournament's $250,000 first prize, she is the show's highest all-time money winner among female contestants, with a total of $333,601 ($83,601 in her regular games), though Larissa Kelly holds the record for highest-earning female in regular games. DiNucci's total winnings are $11,004 higher than Kelly's ($333,601 to $322,597). Her brother, Dennis DiNucci, was a contestant on the May 19, 1992 game, which he lost to Jerome Vered. Dennis DiNucci advised his sister to go on the show to "redeem the family name".
Background
Celeste DiNucci was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and earned her undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts from and her M.A. in English from Northwestern University. As of 2008 she was a Ph.D candidate in English at the University of Pennsylvania.
Initial appearances
Celeste DiNucci first appeared on ' on July 20, 2006, winning $10,600. She went on to win five games and $83,601 before finishing third in her quest to become the first female six-time champion, losing to Army specialist Eugene Manning on the second-to-last show of Season 22.
Tournament of Champions
Quarterfinals
Celeste DiNucci's five wins were good enough to earn a berth in the show's Tournament of Champions that was held in November 2007. She appeared in the second quarterfinal match. Although she did not win her quarterfinal, her score was high enough for one of the four wild card spots reserved for the high scorers among the non-winners.
Semifinals
Celeste DiNucci played in the second semifinal match. In her semifinal, she and four-time champion Christian Haines finished the match with identical final scores of $15,401 (their opponent Jeff Spoeri lost with an incorrect response in Final Jeopardy!), resulting in a tiebreaker round. The category was "Child's Play" and the answer was "A Longfellow poem & a Lillian Hellman play about a girls' boarding school share this timely title"; DiNucci gave the correct response ("What is The Children's Hour?") and advanced to the finals. This was the only tiebreaker ever to occur in a Tournament of Champions.
Finals
After day one of the finals, DiNucci held a $7600 lead over Canadian three-time champion Doug Hicton. She ended up winning the tournament with a two-game total of $22,000 to Hicton's $21,599. ' Cliff Galiher finished third with $6000.

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