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

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

tions?
It was a light bulb moment. Ms. Griffin
said, “79 Wistful Vista.” And Mr. Griffin re-
plied, “What is Fibber McGee and Molly’s
address?” — a reference to characters on a
long-running radio comedy.
The mechanics of the game, initially
called “What’s the Question?” went
through a few iterations before “Jeopardy!”
made its debut on NBC on March 30, 1964,
with Art Fleming as the host.
Initially a hit, the show was canceled in
1975 as NBC sought to reach a younger
demographic. “Jeopardy!” returned in 1978,
disappeared again, then underwent a high-
tech face lift. The low-tech game board was
replaced with a bank of video monitors. The
theme music, composed by Mr. Griffin, was
updated using electronic synthesizers. And
in 1984, the show came back for good.

‘Part of Americana’

Mr. Trebek has said that he was chosen as
host because he had made a good impres-
sion when he filled in on “Wheel of Fortune”
in an emergency when the original host,
Chuck Woolery, was hospitalized. Merv

Griffin Enterprises, which created both shows, appreciated Mr. Trebek’s seamless performance on “Wheel” and offered him “Jeopardy!” Mr. Griffin also wrote the show’s highly distinctive “Think” theme, which is played during “Final Jeopardy!” as contestants write down questions that usually make or break them. Its 30-second countdown has become synonymous with any deadline pressure, with a wood block timekeeper and a harp glissando finish as well as pizzicato strings at the very end. Mr. Trebek enjoyed hearing the theme music played at ballparks and football games when managers huddled or time was otherwise stopped. That meant that the music was instantly recognizable, that “Jeop- ardy!” had arrived, he said — that it had become “part of Americana.” George Alexander Trebek was born on July 22, 1940, in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, north of Toronto. His father, George Edward Trebek, was a chef who had emigrated from Ukraine as a child, and his mother, Lucille (Lagacé) was French Canadian. Alex grew up in a bilingual French-English household. He attended Jesuit schools until the age

of 12, when his parents divorced; he then left Sudbury to attend boarding school at the University of Ottawa High School in Ot- tawa, graduating in 1957. Afterward he en- rolled at the University of Ottawa. By his junior year he needed money to pay for college and found a job at the Cana- dian Broadcasting Corporation as a sum- mer relief announcer. He took on other an- nouncing gigs. After graduating in 1961 with a major in philosophy, Mr. Trebek stayed at the CBC, where his interests turned to hosting. His first such job was for a Canadian music program called “Music Hop” in 1963. He then hosted a high school quiz show called “Reach for the Top” and other miscella- neous programs until 1973, when he moved to the United States. There he started out on a short-lived game show called “The Wizard of Odds.” A dizzying series of other shows followed, including “High Rollers,” “Double Dare” and “The $128,000 Question.” In 1974 he married Elaine Callei, a busi- nesswoman and former Playboy bunny. They had no children and divorced in 1981. In 1990, he married Jean Currivan, a real es- tate project manager from New York. Survivors include his wife and his children, Matthew, Emily and Nicky. In 2016, Forbes estimated Mr. Trebek’s salary at $16.5 million and ranked him as the 11th highest paid television host in the world. Nonetheless, Mr. Trebek eschewed the Hollywood high life. He reveled in being a homebody, drove a pickup truck and spent his leisure time on do-it-yourself home re- pairs. For a time, he owned a 700-acre ranch near Paso Robles in California, where he bred and trained thoroughbred racehorses, but he sold it in 2005. His job helming “Jeopardy!” did not pre- vent him from periodically hosting other game shows, adding to his popularity. He hosted “Jeopardy!” and “Classic Concen- tration” simultaneously and on Feb. 4, 1991, made broadcast history when he also appeared on “To Tell the Truth,” becoming the first person to host three American game shows at once.

A Pop Culture Figure

Somewhere along the way he became a cultural icon. Mr. Trebek appeared frequently as himself in movies, including in “Charlie’s An- gels” (2000), and on television programs, including “The Simpsons” and “The Colbert Report.” He ran a leg with the Olympic torch in advance of the 1996 Games in Atlanta. He even hosted a debate for the gover- nor’s race in Pennsylvania in 2018, but the result was disastrous. He had said that he wanted the format to be conversational, but no one had anticipated how much he wanted to be part of the conversation. He talked for more than 40 percent of the time, including offering random comments on the clergy abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. He later apologized, saying he had misunderstood the role of moderator. Still, in an unscientific poll in Reader’s Di- gest in 2013, he came in eighth on the list of 100 most trusted Americans (he became a naturalized United States citizen in 1998). Since Mr. Trebek announced his diagnosis, his admirers have flooded the internet and elsewhere with encomiums. “Despite the diagnosis, Trebek continued to work, to put on his suits and read his clues,” wrote one, Sam Anderson, in 2019 in The New York Times Magazine. “It was a dignified refusal to surrender to doom,” he added. “He was the squarest pos- sible existentialist hero: a man who holds the answer to every single trivia question, but not to the great final question of death — and yet he keeps showing up anyway, read- ing his clues, giving us every last answer he can.”

For more than 35 years, he was intro- duced with, “And now, here is the host of ‘Jeopardy!’... Alex Trebek!” But “host” never seemed quite the right term for what Trebek did. “Host” suggests that the show you’re watching is a party, a social get-together — which is how most hosts, especially on game shows, treat the job. They want to invite you in, entertain you, get you to like them. Trebek, who died on Sunday at 80, was not like that. There was nothing ingratiating about him. When he crisply welcomed you to “Jeopardy!,” he invited you for a half-hour of play that he took seriously. It would be fun, his hearty, efficient manner suggested, because it was fun and bracing to exercise one’s brain. He served up TV’s favorite healthful indulgence — a mindful good time that went down as easily as a mindless one. Watching “Jeopardy!” year after year was like auditing a seminar led by a gentle but firm professor with a rotating roster of star pupils. It’s not as if Trebek had no showbiz in him. He was a game-show veteran — you can still find him on YouTube, rocking a Gabe Kaplan ’stache and a loose ’70s manner on “High Rollers.” But when he assumed the post once held by Art Fleming in the 1984 revival of “Jeop- ardy!,” he adapted his style for a show in which the star was what was between the contestants’ ears. He had courtly formalities that are increasingly scarce in TV today. The “Shall we?” at the outset of a match. The little wince when someone would fumble a Double Jeopardy question. His Picard-like cool was his appeal, in an environment of emotive syndicated Kirks. When he delivered one of his trademark careful pronunciations — “Comintern,” “Argentina” — it seemed not showy but respectful. It was the spirit of “Jeopardy!” to care about getting things right. With some celebrities, you might fantasize that, if you ever met them, they would like you. With Alex Trebek — as you sat on the couch, struggling to remember characters from “The Aeneid,” thumb clicking a phantom buzzer — you dreamed that, if you ever made the big show, he would respect you. You sensed there was a line with him: He would joke around to a point, but class was in session and he took it seriously. It was a game-within-a- game to find the rare contestant who could come up with a clever enough response during his midgame inter- views to be rewarded with a laugh: “Pick up that signaling device! What a great answer!” Trebek himself was not an over- sharer, which was why it was so strik- ing when the occasional story came out about his life outside the studio, like his injuring an Achilles’ tendon while chasing an intruder at his hotel in 2011. The idea of this umpire of the mind having a physical exploit — surely he could just stop a burglar with disappointed passive-aggression? — was surprising and delightful. And maybe this was why, when he announced that he had Stage 4 pancre- atic cancer, fans both intense and casual were swept up with such feel- ing. All of this time, the news made us realize, we had felt for him not just respect but a quiet “Remains of the Day” kind of love. In January, ABC aired the “Jeop- ardy! The Greatest of All Time” cham- pionship in prime time. Sure, it was a chance to see the game’s three most celebrated players face off. (Ken Jen- nings won, albeit by adopting James Holzhauer’s “all in” style.) But come on: We knew what the real occasion was. The tournament was like a homecoming, a chance to see a few successful students come back to campus and offer what was most likely their final toast to the man who had put them through some heart-pounding exams. Amid the white-knuckle bets and trash talk, there was an “O captain, my captain” feel to the tournament. On Night 3, Holzhauer used the Final Jeopardy round to submit the question-answer “Who is the G.H.O.S.T.? (Greatest Host of Syndicated TV),” and I’d like to see “This Is Us” come up with anything as tear-jerking. The “Jeopardy!” brand will surely live on. But there is something especially poignant now about saying goodbye to Trebek because of what his show represented: a place of empir- ical, uncontested truth in the media. On “Jeopardy!,” after all, there were not alternative facts, only actual ones. They did not change depending on how you felt about them or the person revealing them. Trebek was that rare thing in contemporary media: a voice of simple, declarative truth and trusted authority. But it was an authority he wore lightly, like a well- tailored jacket. On a show that was usually sched- uled between the depressing evening news and a night of reality and crime shows, Alex Trebek did more than teach us trivia and betting strategies. He gave us, five days a week, a place to go where it was OK to know things. He was our trusted man with the answers, even in times when reality came to us in the form of a question.

JAMES

PONIEWOZIK

AN APPRAISAL

For Decades,

A Calming

Purveyor

Of the Truth

Alex Trebek in 2010 on

the set of “Jeopardy!” As

the host, Mr. Trebek was

an authoritative and un-

flappable fixture for mil-

lions of Americans who

organized their week-

nights around the show.

‘THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME’With, from left, Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter

and James Holzhauer, the highest-earning contestants in 2019.

ERIC MCCANDLESS/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES

‘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.”’

ALEX TREBEK

REED SAXON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE EMMY AWARDSHolding his statuette for outstanding game show host in 2006.

In 2014, he claimed the record for hosting the most episodes of a single game show.

AMANDA EDWARDS/GETTY IMAGES