Want answers?

Sam Murray is your guy.

According to the Population Reference Bureau, what is the approximate number of people who have ever lived on Earth? (a) 50 billion, (b) 100 billion, (c) 1 trillion, (d) 5 trillion?

Murray knew that: (b) 100 billion.

The answer qualified him to win the Million Dollar Tournament on the syndicated edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Here’s another question: The Blorenge is a (a) river in Ireland, (b) forest in Scotland, (c) mountain in Wales, (d) desert in Australia?

This question stumped his rival Jehan Shamsid-Deen of Concord, N.C. When she declined to answer on yesterday’s show, Murray was named the $1 million winner.

The next question: Who’s Sam Murray (and how about some dough)?

He’s a jovial 44-year-old unemployed bartender/waiter with a lineman’s build who lives in South Philadelphia but sounds like the Chapmanville, W.Va., of his upbringing.

And no to the cash, as he’ll tell you with a smile. It’s $1 million and all, but he’ll get $250,000 in one month and the remaining $750,000 over 20 years – minus taxes.

“It’s not going to change me,” Murray said. “But it will afford me the ability to be able to do things like going back to school.”

As a young man, Murray said, he passed up a scholarship to join the Navy. Afterward, he fell into the restaurant business, “where there’s easy cash all the time.”

He said he planned to enroll in nursing school. “I like helping people. Bringing somebody a beer is like bringing someone two Tylenol.”

Murray, who has lived in the city for 19 years, has waited tables at such places as the Prime Rib and Rock Lobster, and most recently worked at Octo Waterfront Grille, a seasonal establishment that succeeded Rock Lobster. (He’s collecting unemployment, he said.) He prides himself on a “nearly photographic” memory, and says he’s correctly handled an order for 22 people without using an order pad.

Murray’s friends – plus his mother, Antonia Ojeda Flaherty, sister Tina Horsley, and friend Stephanie Smedley – gathered yesterday over pizza, hoagies, beer, and smokes for a viewing party at Paddy’s old City Pub, a taproom near the Ben Franklin Bridge.

They cheered when Murray appeared on the screen while Shamsid-Deen wrestled with the Blorenge answer.

Murray looked tense. His son, Tim, 21, sat nervously beside him.

Sam Murray knew the answer, he said. He had been edgy since he answered his own million-dollar question. He knew that nine other players, seeded higher in the tournament, had to field theirs.

One by one, the rivals walked away rather than risk their winnings.

Shamsid-Deen did not want to risk hers, either.

The answer is: (c) mountain in Wales.

Murray is the 13th millionaire in the history of the franchise, the third since Meredith Vieira began hosting the syndicated version.

“I thought my head was going to pop off,” Murray said, as he was declared the winner.

Contact staff writer Michael Klein at 215-854-5514 or mklein@phillynews.com.