Alex Trebek, who has hosted the favored recreation present Jeopardy! since 1984, has died on the age of 80. The official Jeopardy! Twitter account confirmed the tv persona handed away peacefully at house early on Sunday morning, surrounded by household and mates.
In March 2019, Trebek was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. On the time, the host stated was present process chemotherapy therapies however meant to proceed internet hosting his longtime trivia collection. Earlier this yr, he updated followers once more to say that, whereas there have been “not so good days” that led him to query whether or not remedy was value it, he realized he had turn into “an inspiration, and a cheerleader of kinds of the worth of residing and hope” and deliberate to stay his life with as a lot zeal as humanly attainable.
When the COVID-19 pandemic quickly shutdown Jeopardy!, Trebek stored up his routine by writing a memoir. Revealed in July, The Answer Is . . .: Reflections on My Life took followers behind the scenes of the present, and Trebek’s personal struggles with most cancers. “I’m going to stay with this present protocol, then that’s it,” he wrote of his plans for chemotherapy. “If it doesn’t work I’ll most likely cease remedy. It wasn’t a simple dialog, and it isn’t any simpler writing these phrases. High quality of life was an necessary consideration.”
Trebek resumed work this summer time, and new episodes of Jeopardy! started airing in September. The set had modified — plexiglass partitions, socially distanced contestants — however Trebek’s enthusiasm for training, perception, and trivia-fueled leisure was unfazed. January’s “Biggest of All Time” match was seen as a attainable off-ramp for the host, however as Ken Jennings told Polygon at the time, it could be arduous for anybody — on the present or within the viewers — to think about Jeopardy! with out the host. “Alex is irreplaceable to me,” Jennings stated.
The host’s influence on his international viewers could by no means absolutely acknowledged, however earlier this month, one contestant gave what amounted to the last word tribute. Via tears, Burt Thakur thanked Trebek for at all times being there, internet hosting Jeopardy! and, in his case, serving to him be taught English. That is what Trebek means to just about everybody who tuned into the present over time.
