Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek spent his final day on a swing in his backyard with his wife 

The executive producer of Jeopardy! says beloved host Alex Trebek passed away painlessly after spending ‘a nice final day’ with his family, just like he always wanted.

The 80-year-old quiz show host died early Sunday morning at his Los Angeles home following a battle with pancreatic cancer. 

‘He had a swing in his backyard that he loved. He actually rebuilt it earlier this year… Even in his book he described that he wanted his final day to be sitting on his swing next to his wife Jean and watching the horizon and he got to do that,’ executive producer Mike Richards said to the Today Show Monday.

‘He was coherent. He wasn’t in pain and the fact that he had a nice final day makes all of us in the Jeopardy! family feel much better,’ Richards added, speaking from the Jeopardy! set in Culver City, California. 

Trebek continued to host the show, which he has been the face of for decades, with his last episode recorded on October 29. That episode will air on Christmas.

‘He was even better than what you would hope for. He was incredibly hardworking. He cared about this show. He cared about the importance of this show and that it made people want to be smarter. He made being smart cool,’ Richards said. 

Richards recalled that Trebek didn’t like being showered with compliments and threw all his energy into hosting the show before his last days.

‘On what ended up being our final day taping I knew he was in an enormous amount of pain and as he was leaving I saw him at the door and I said “You know that was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.“ He kinda had his head down and he looked up and said thank you,’ Richards said.

Richards reminisced about Trebek’s humor and how on one occasion Trebek walked out onto set without wearing pants to alleviate the pressure during a high-stakes Jeopardy! match.

‘He wanted the contestants to perform at their highest levels and he reveled in a great Jeopardy! game when it was competitive and those are some of our best contestants of all time,’ he said sharing the clip of Trebek’s no pants prank. 

‘There was an enormous amount of tension on the set, they all knew there was a lot on them to perform, that just goes to show he has an incredible sense of humor and how important it was to have a great Jeopardy! game,’ he added.  

Above all, Richards said, Trebek was a man devoted to his family. 

‘I think the greatest thing about him was how much he loved his family. Of all of the things he did and of all his accomplishments, his greatest accomplishment to him was his family and the love of his life,’ he added.

Trebek announced to the public in March 2019 that he had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, yet he continued to film the show.  

He had hosted more than 8,200 episodes of Jeopardy! over 37 seasons. 

He is survived by his wife of 30 years, Jean, and their two children, Matthew and Emily.

Trebek was also close with his first wife’s daughter, Nicky. He married first wife Elaine Callei in 1974 and they divorced in 1981.

On Sunday morning Trebek’s wife and daughter were seen outside their family home with friends bearing flowers and gifts following the devastating news. 

Beloved host Alex Trebek, who started out in radio and on shows in his native Canada before becoming a fixture of American TV for 36 years as the steady hand of the juggernaut Jeopardy!, passed away on Sunday at the age of 80

Alex Trebek, whose wit, pronunciation panache and steady hand for 36 years helped to make the quiz show Jeopardy! into a juggernaut, died on Sunday at the age of 80.

The beloved TV host revealed a stage four diagnosis for pancreatic cancer in March 2019.

Starting out in radio and television in his native Canada, Trebek did a slew of game shows in Hollywood before landing the revival of Jeopardy! in 1984. Packaged with the Wheel of Fortune and syndicated throughout the country, the show became ‘part of the fabric of American life,’ Trebek wrote in his 2020 autobiography.

‘Viewers have gotten used to having me there, not so much as a showbiz personality but as an uncle. I’m a part of the family more than an outside celebrity who comes into your home to entertain you.’

Trebek, whose family called him ‘Sonny,’ grew up in the nickel-mining town of Sudbury, Ontario. He studied philosophy out of necessity to make his way through college. Bilingual, Trebek spent 12 years announcing and hosting on radio and TV for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in English and French before moving to Los Angeles to host The Wizards of Odds in 1973.

He is survived by his wife of 30 years, Jean, and their two children, Matthew and Emily. Trebek was close with his first wife’s daughter, Nicky. He married Elaine Callei in 1974 and they divorced in 1981.   

Despite numerous awards and accolades, the host, whose facial hair or lack thereof has caused speculation and news coverage, stayed humble, remarking is his memoir, ‘I have never seen myself as anything special.’

In the late 1920s, his father, George Edward Terebeychuk, left Ukraine and made his way to Canada. After changing his last name to Trebek to match his cousin, George started working and cooking in kitchens first in Toronto and then in Sudbury, a town known for its nickel mining in Ontario.

In Sudbury, George was the co-head chef at the Nickel Range Hotel and he met Lucille Lagace. They got married in December 1939 because Lucille was pregnant. George Alexander Trebek was born on July 22, 1940 in what, he wrote, was a ‘little shack of a house just behind my grandparents’ home. There was no doctor.’

His sister, Barbara, was born on October 14, 1941, and Trebek recalled a childhood surrounded by his extended family in Sudbury and for a time in Toronto. He often watched his uncles, who were in construction, as they built and painted. He also spent a lot of time with his father as he worked as chef, and wrote that ‘the kitchen became a second home to me.’

As his mother was French Canadian, Trebek was bilingual and he described himself as ‘a good student in primary school. Got good grades. Little bit of sh** stirrer.’

Growing up, his family called him Sonny and by his late teens, he was using his middle name Alex to avoid confusion with his father, according to his autobiography, The Answer Is… Reflections on My Life.

‘I never thought about whether we were poor. We existed, same as everybody else. My friends and I were all just lower-middle-class kids from lower-middle-class families. We played every sport: hockey, baseball, softball, basketball, football. I blew out my knee playing football. Some parents owned their house. Some parents rented. We were all part of the same community.’

And while his parents cared deeply for each other, Trebek noted that they were ill-suited: ‘Dad was a smoker and a heavy drinker. Mom was a teetotaler, and she was brighter than he was. Divorce was almost unheard of in our community, but they separated, which caused me no end of grief.’

When his parents separated, Trebek was sent to boarding school at the University of Ottawa and he began acting out. His behavior was ‘so unruly,’ that he and his father had to beg the principal to let him stay at the school. Afterwards, Trebek was a well-behaved and good student, according to his memoir.

He tried the military to pay for college, but rebelled at its rules. Back in Sudbury and without any money, he did what is called a ‘matriculation year’ or the equivalent of first year university in Canada. He went to prom, but Trebek wrote he ‘was very shy with girls. I was not forward at all. You would have to throw me into a girl’s arms and she would have to accept me willingly for anything to happen.’  

Trebek studied philosophy at the University of Ottawa because it allowed him to work part time in order to pay for his education. ‘Growing up, I wanted to be either a pilot, a doctor, or the prime minister of Canada,’ he wrote, adding that he considered medicine at one point as well. But once he discovered broadcasting, all those professions fell by the wayside.

It took him a bit of time before he broke into the business. He auditioned well, Trebek recalled, but was not hired because of his lack of experience. ‘Maybe my rebellious streak kept me from taking no for an answer,’ he wrote and then applied to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, known as the CBC. ‘I still have the audition tape.’

He was hired for a temporary summer position and then filled in during other holidays. The CBC offered Trebek a full-time position, which he accepted but with condition that he finish university first.

After graduating, he worked in Ottawa for two years before being transferred to the CBC’s national headquarters in Toronto in the early 1960s. He hosted the Canadian equivalent of American Bandstand, a show called Music Hop. The program was his first taste of ‘celebrity,’ he recalled. He had done live TV in Ottawa, but wrote: ‘No matter how much experience you have, live TV is always challenging. If you mess up on TV – which I did – you better learn how to redeem yourself…

‘Messing up on live TV taught me an important lesson about show business: learn to laugh at yourself.’

For 12 years at the CBC, Trebek was a jack-of-all trades, covering sporting events such as curling tournaments, introducing orchestras and ballet performances, and hosting quiz shows like Reach for the Top where Canadian high school students competed for scholarships, according to his memoir. He began thinking about a career in America.

Enter fellow Canadian Alan Thicke. 

Trebek met Thicke when he hosted a variety show called After Noon and Thicke appeared on it. Thicke, best known for playing Jason Seaver on the hit TV show Growing Pains during the 1980s and early ’90s, was also a songwriter who composed TV theme songs and produced several shows. Thicke, now living in Los Angeles, called up Trebek about a new game show he was working on called The Wizard of Odds. 

In 1973, Trebek was hired to host The Wizard of Odds but only resigned from the CBC after it was picked up for another 13 weeks. He moved to LA. ‘I wasn’t sad about leaving Canada,’ he wrote, adding that his sister, Barbara, lived there as well. ‘Back then it really did feel like a small town…

‘I was in hog heaven. I was where things happened. The center of the entertainment industry. Not making a whole lot of money but enough to survive comfortably in a new apartment. I was having a great time.’

Trebek, now 33, was the ‘talented newcomer in broadcasting,’ making connections and attending dinner parties. In his memoir, he wrote about how he didn’t have a vice: no smoking, drinking or doing drugs. ‘I don’t really drink that much. Having seen the way my father drank, it never interested me,’ he recalled.

So he decided to ‘add more salt’ to his language, Trebek wrote, quipping in his memoir about the ‘revelation’ that he swears.  

The Wizard of Odds, which focused on math, lasted for a year. In 1974, Trebek was hosting a show called High Rollers, a game about throwing dice. He also got married that September to Elaine Callei, a former Playboy Bunny he had met in Toronto.

‘She hosted a couple of television programs, including a daily talk show that was groundbreaking for how frankly it addressed sexual topics. She had been married before and had a daughter named Nicky. She was around six when Elaine and I got together, and cute as all get out,’ he wrote.

The newlyweds bought a house on Mulholland Drive, and Callei invited Trebek’s mother, Lucille, to live with them on the property and help raise Nicky. Trebek wrote that it was a ‘marvelous arrangement.’

Trebek and Callei were married until 1981. ‘I didn’t know what was expected of me as a husband. Elaine and I were both too reluctant to give up our respective points of view, nor were we willing to compromise,’ he said, according to an unauthorized biography, Who is Alex Trebek?, by Lisa Rogak.

Trebek wrote that their divorce was amicable and his mother, Lucille, continued to take care of Nicky. He brought a house across the street from them. He noted in his memoir: ‘My relationships with Elaine and Nicky remain strong. Though I never adopted Nicky – her biological father was alive at the time – I refer to her as my daughter by osmosis.’

Professionally, Trebek was struggling for a steady gig in the 1970s. ‘My career during those early years in Los Angeles was a bit erratic and unusual. I was being offered hosting jobs for all kinds of shows.’

In addition to The Wizard of Odds and two stints of High Rollers, he hosted Double Dare, a show where PhDs competed against each other while in isolation booths, Battlestars and Pitfall.

‘This was a difficult time in my life. My father was sick with cancer, and Elaine and I had just divorced. I needed the money for my new house. The job was supposed to pay me $49,000, which was a nice amount of dough back then,’ he wrote about Pitfall, which aired in the early 1980s.

He was paid for the first 13 weeks of the show, but his second check for the next chunk of time, didn’t clear. He mounted that check on the wall behind his desk.

‘In case you’ve lost count by now, that’s seven jobs in ten years. I never felt frustrated by the lack of continuity during those years. That’s just the business. For all the shows that are hits, there are dozen more that aren’t. I was just happy to have a job. There’s a lot to be said for being gainfully employed in the entertainment industry…

‘So when I got invited to host yet another show, this one called Jeopardy!, I was ready.’  

Luck and timing played a role in Trebek getting Jeopardy!, he wrote. While he was hosting Battlestars – a show where celebrities competed and akin to Hollywood Squares – he agreed to fill in for Chuck Woolery on Wheel of Fortune. Woolery, who hosted the show from 1975 to 1981, was in the hospital. Pat Sajak has been hosting Wheel of Fortune since 1981.

This favor was remembered by Merv Griffin, famed talk show host whose production companies were the forces behind both Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!. Griffin was looking to revive Jeopardy!, which first aired from 1964 until 1974 and then again for six months in 1978, according to Trebek’s memoir.

Jeopardy! was to be coupled with Wheel of Fortune. Trebek took the job and the first episode with him hosting aired on September 10, 1984. Trebek recalled the challenges of those early years and how the show ‘struggled getting people to watch.’

By the time Trebek met Jean Currivan, Jeopardy! was on firm footing. Currivan was bookkeeping for one of his friends on the weekend when they were introduced. ‘She was the most charming person I had ever met; not only polite, but exuding a warmth that showed character and spirituality as well. And she was drop-dead gorgeous.’

When his friend invited Trebek to a dinner party, he asked that Currivan be included as well. ‘After that, we started dating. I don’t know if Jeanie was as instantly certain about me as I was about her. I think at first she might’ve thought I was a bit of a jerk.’

The couple married in April 1990 and celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2020.

‘In my office, near that framed check from the game show producer who stiffed me, I’ve got another framed image. Jeanie gave it to me. It’s a line from our favorite movie, Wuthering Heights: “Whatever our souls are made of yours and mines are the same.” That’s the way I look at our relationship. We are one soul in two bodies.’

Soon after they were married, they had their son, Matthew, in 1990, and then there daughter, Emily, in 1993. He wrote: ‘The most challenging thing about fatherhood is that it introduced an element of fear into my life. When you’re a bachelor, you do all kinds of dumb, daredevil things. You don’t fear for your life too much. You don’t worry about anything. But when you’re married and have a family, you worry.’

He noted in his book that because Jeopardy! taped for two long days a week, he had the opportunity to spend time with his family. And they always had dinner together, which was unlike how he grew up. 

HIs father, George, died after Trebek’s divorce from his first wife in the 1980s, and his younger sister, Barbara, died of breast cancer in 2007. His mom, Lucille, who lived with Trebek on his property, died at the age of 95. 

Trebek made his cancer diagnosis public in early 2019 and he wrote that there were moments he wished he hadn’t. Nonetheless, he was touched by the amount of support he received from Jeopardy! viewers about the illness and throughout the decades. ‘I really can’t say enough how grateful I am for our show’s fans. I try to show that gratitude as much as possible,’ he wrote.

After hosting more than 8,000 episodes of Jeopardy! and being honored with several awards including Emmys, he wrote that he would like to be remembered ‘first of all 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 that was my job. That is what a host is supposed to do.’