Michael Shutterly

Michael Shutterly, from Richmond, Virginia, was a contestant on season 1 of the U.S. version of the show on August 24th-25th, 1999. He walked away with $500,000.

He held the record for the largest single win in United States game show history, until it was broken by John Carpenter who won $1 million almost 3 months later.

Fastest Finger Question
From the 9 contestants, 5 got it right, but Michael (with a time of 5.07 seconds) was the fastest to correctly answer C-D-A-B, making it into the Hot Seat.