Alex Trebek talks cancer, hospice in new book
America’s most beloved game-show host wrote this new book. What is Alex Trebek’s The Answer Is ... Reflections on My Life?
For anyone who enjoys watching “Jeopardy!” – or has ever wondered about the sincere, mustachioed man at its helm – “The Answer Is ... “is an illuminating look at the life and philosophy of Trebek, who celebrated his 80th birthday Wednesday. The memoir traces his humble beginnings in Ontario, Canada, in a lower-middle-class family, where he started his career as a radio announcer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Twelve years later, he moved to Los Angeles to host the shortlived NBC game shows The Wizard of Odds and High Rollers.
After a lucky break filling in for Chuck Woolery on Wheel of Fortune, Trebek was asked to host Jeopardy! in syndication in 1984, where he has stoically quizzed eager contestants for the past 36 years, until production was suspended in March due to the coronavirus.
Trebek’s book includes some heartwarming Jeopardy! anecdotes. (For instance, he cried when contestant Ken Jennings’ 74-day winning streak ended in 2004.) There are also some funny off-screen stories: Despite reports to the contrary, Trebek clarifies he wasn’t sleeping nude when his hotel room was burglarized in 2011. (He was wearing a T-shirt!)
Trebek’s cancer struggle features heavily in the memoir’s latter half. The TV host revealed in March 2019 that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Since then, he’s been open about the pain and depression he’s felt while undergoing treatment, and his desire to stop treatment if his latest round of chemotherapy fails.
Here’s what else Trebek had to say about his health and well-being in the book.
1. Trebek started wearing a wig a year before his cancer diagnosis
Trebek has been losing his hair due to chemotherapy treatments, but he actually started wearing a hairpiece in early 2018, about a year before announcing his cancer diagnosis. After banging his head and experiencing episodes where he’d lose his balance, Trebek learned that he had blood clots on both sides of his brain, which he had to get surgically removed. The resulting scars were so noticeable that a “Jeopardy!” producer suggested he wear a wig.
“The guy who did it does wigs for a lot of the big stars, mostly women. I won’t share their names, but I bet you’d be surprised,” Trebek writes. “These pieces are so good. Nobody can tell.”
2. “I’m ready to pack it in” sometimes, Trebek admits
Trebek writes frankly about cancer’s emotional toll. He says there are moments when he regrets going public with his diagnosis.
“A lot of people are looking to me for reassurance,” and yet “I’m a (expletive) wuss. I start to cry for no reason at all,” he says.
He also explains why he doesn’t like to use the terms “fighting” or “battling” with regard to the disease, because at the end of the day, “it is simple biology. You get treatment and you get better. Or you don’t. And neither outcome is an indication of your strength as a person.”
While he still tries to be optimistic, there are moments when “I’m ready to pack it in,” Trebek says. “Because I understand that death is part of life. And I’ve lived a long life. If I were in my 20s with years ahead of me, I might feel differently. But when you’re about to turn 80, it’s not like you’re missing out on a great many things. The will to survive is there, and then you get hit with shock waves – whether pain or unpredicted surges of depression or just debilitating moments of agony, weakness.”
Trebek goes into great detail about the pain that makes it difficult to tape Jeopardy!, including stomach cramps and mouth sores caused by chemotherapy. While he intends to host the show as long as he is physically and mentally able, “I know there will come a time when I can no longer do my job as host,” he writes.
But he believes Jeopardy! can and will go on without him: “You could replace me as the host of the show with anybody and it would likely be just as popular,” Trebek says. “Hell, after 36 years with me, it might even be more popular. The show might be even more appreciated than it is with me as host.”
3. How he hopes to spend his final days
Trebek reveals that he has spoken to his doctor about hospice care and has begun organizing his finances for his wife of 30 years, Jean Currivan, and their two kids, Matthew, 30, and Emily, 27.
“When death happens, it happens. Why should I be afraid of it?” Trebek writes. “Now, if it involves physical suffering, I might be afraid of that. But according to my doctor, that’s what hospice is for. They want to make it as easy as it can possibly be for you to transition into whatever future you happen to believe in.” (Trebek says he does not believe in a specific god nor “a particular version of the afterlife.”)
He goes on to say that he hopes to be remembered as a “good and loving husband and father, and also as a decent man who did his best to help people perform at their best.” Because of the COVID-19 lockdown, any bucket-list plans of traveling, or even family outings, are on hold.
“Here I am wanting to enjoy what might be the last of my days, and, what, I’m supposed to just stay at home and sit in a chair and stare into space? Actually, that doesn’t sound too bad,” Trebek says. “Yep, I’ll be perfectly content if that’s how my story ends: sitting on the swing with the woman I love, my soul mate, and our two wonderful children nearby.”
(USA Today/TNS)