The New York Times - USA (2020-11-09)

A16 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALMONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2020

comforting in his orderliness.

Mr. Trebek’s death was confirmed by the

show’s producers. They said that episodes

of the show he hosted would air through

Dec. 25 and that they had not made plans for

a replacement.

Mr. Trebek had announced in a video on

March 6, 2019, that he had received a diag-

nosis of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer that

week. He said that like many others with the

disease, he had no symptoms until it had

spread throughout his body. He delivered

the news from the show’s set, wearing, as

usual, a bandbox-fresh suit and tie as he

spoke straight to the camera without senti-

ment or histrionics.

When he commanded a game, he might

occasionally raise an eyebrow and say

“Oooh, noooo, sorry” or repeat a clue with a

whiff of condescension; he told New York

magazine that when contestants missed ob-

vious answers, he deliberately struck a tone

that was meant to convey: “How can you

not get this? This is not rocket science.”

Through it all, he kept the game running

on its strict timetable.

He started hosting in 1984, when the show

returned to the airwaves after a hiatus.

Since then he has been the only host, helm-

ing every episode except one, on April

Fools’ Day in 1997, when he swapped places

with Pat Sajak, the host of “Wheel of For-

tune.”

Mr. Trebek and Mr. Sajak had a friendly

rivalry over the years as they led two of the

longest-running game shows in television

history. For years, “Jeopardy!” was the top-

rated quiz show in America and usually the

No. 2 game show, behind “Wheel of For-

tune.”

A few weeks after Mr. Trebek announced

that he had cancer, the ratings for “Jeop-

ardy!” coincidentally began to soar when a

contestant, James Holzhauer, a sports gam-

bler from Las Vegas, roared through the

game on a winning streak that captivated

the nation.

Each night, more and more viewers

tuned in to see whether Mr. Holzhauer

could beat the record set by Ken Jennings, a

computer programmer, who scored 74

straight victories in 2004. With Mr.

Holzhauer on the buzzer, “Jeopardy!” even

blew past “Judge Judy,” long the top-rated

show in syndication.

In the end, Mr. Holzhauer fell just $58,

shy (over 32 games) of breaking Mr. Jen-

nings’s record win of $2.5 million. But he

boosted the show’s ratings to a 14-year high,

drawing 13.3 million daily viewers. He later

donated some of his winnings to charitable

causes, including research into pancreatic

cancer in Mr. Trebek’s name.

Mr. Trebek said later that while he was

taping some of the shows with Mr.

Holzhauer, he had been in excruciating

pain.

Unlike many celebrities who conceal ill-

ness, Mr. Trebek was transparent about

what he was going through. Sometimes his

pain would shoot “from a three to an 11” dur-

ing tapings, he told CBS’s “Sunday Morn-

ing” in May 2019.

“I taped the show, and then I made it to

the dressing room on one occasion, just

barely, before I writhed in pain and cried in

pain,” he said.

In March 2020, he gave a one-year video

update on his status, noting that just 18 per-

cent of people with pancreatic cancer live

that long.

The chemo treatments were almost too

much, he said.

“There were moments of great pain,” he

said, “days when certain bodily functions no

longer functioned and sudden, massive at-

tacks of great depression that made me

wonder if it really was worth fighting on.”

But to give up, he said, would have been

to betray loved ones who were helping him

survive.

Model of Decorum

Mr. Trebek hosted more than 8,

episodes of “Jeopardy!” In 2014, he claimed

the record for hosting the most episodes of a

single game show, surpassing the record set

by Bob Barker, who had led “The Price is

Right” for 6,828 episodes between 1972 and

2007.

Mr. Trebek once said he thought game

shows did well because they avoided con-

flict.

“In this day and age, when there is so

much societal tension, game shows are

valuable because they’re pleasant,” he told

New York magazine in 2018.

Some viewers were drawn to the sense of

absolute certitude that Mr. Trebek project-

ed.

“As we get further into the 21st century,

and we become more aware of the relativ-

ism of truth, there is something satisfying

about Alex telling you it’s right or wrong,”

Robert Thompson, a professor of television

and popular culture at Syracuse University,

said in a phone interview.

“I love that there is no discussion, no pan-

el of experts,” he said. “Just Alex with his

cards.”

Mr. Trebek spurned being called the star

of “Jeopardy!” He wanted viewers to focus

on the material. The show derived its drama

not from any antics of his, but from the con-

testants and the possibility that at any mo-

ment fortunes could shift, with an apparent

loser becoming an instant winner, and vice

versa.

“You have to set your ego aside,” Mr. Tre-

bek said of his role. “If you want to be a good

host, you have to figure out a way to get the

contestants to — as in the old television

commercial about the military — ‘be all you

can be.’ Because if they do well, the show

does well. And if the show does well, by as-

sociation, I do well.”

The show did well. “Jeopardy!” has won

more Emmy Awards — 35 — than any other

game show. They included the 2017 Day-

time Emmy for outstanding game show —

remarkable for a program on the air for

more than three decades. Mr. Trebek him-

self won six Emmys for outstanding game

show host and an additional lifetime

achievement award.

“Jeopardy!” won a 2011 Peabody Award,

the first time in more than 50 years that a

television quiz show had been so recog-

nized. The citation said the award, given in

2012, was “for decades of consistently en-

couraging, celebrating and rewarding

knowledge.” It said that “Jeopardy!” was “a

model of integrity and decorum.”

The nod to integrity was significant. Quiz

shows had fallen into disrepute after cheat-

ing scandals in the 1950s; the 1994 film

“Quiz Show” dramatized the deceit.

In reaction to those scandals, the idea for

“Jeopardy!” was born.

Merv Griffin, the talk show host and me-

dia mogul who created the show, recounted

in “The ‘Jeopardy!’ Book” (1990) that he

had been talking to his wife in 1963 about

how much he missed the old quiz shows.

But, he said, he recognized that the format

had lost all credibility after revelations that

contestants on some programs had been se-

cretly fed the answers.

Well, then, his wife, Julann, had said, Why

not give contestants the answers to start

with and make them come up with the ques-

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Alex Trebek, 80,

‘Jeopardy!’ Host

For 37 Years, Dies

7

The number of Emmys
Alex Trebek earned over
his career. “Jeopardy!”
collected 35 in total,
more than any other
game show.

8th

Mr. Trebek’s rank on the
list of 100 most trusted
Americans (he became a
naturalized United States
citizen in 1998).

11th

Mr. Trebek’s rank among
the highest-paid
television hosts in the
world. Forbes reported his
salary to be $16.5 million.

400

The number of other
game shows that came
and went over the years
while Mr. Trebek
captained “Jeopardy!”

8,000+

The number of
“Jeopardy!” episodes
that Mr. Trebek hosted.

THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BEEHosting the 1993 finals in Washington. Somewhere

along the way he became a cultural icon and often appeared as himself in movies.

HANGING OUT WITH THE MUPPETSVisiting the set of “Sesame Street” to

tape an episode at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, N.Y., in 2005.

AP PHOTO/SESAME WORKSHOP, RICHARD TERMINE WALTER MCBRIDE/MEDIAPUNCH

WITH OPRAH WINFREYAt a television

convention in New Orleans in 1990.

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