Sadly, beloved game show Jeopardy host Alex Trebek died of stage 4 pancreatic cancer November 8th 2020. Trebek had been suffering since March of 2019. The fact that he survived close to a year with stage 4 cancer is a miracle, and he continued to host Jeopardy until just two weeks before his death. In this article, you will learn about the amazing run of Alex Trebek.

Johnny Gilbert

“This isssss Jeeeeeopardy!” All of you have probably heard that introduction by Johnny Gilbert at the start of each show. Johnny and Alex had worked together for 37 years, and in Alex’s final run, he was 80, and Johnny was 96. In a video about Johnny on the Jeopardy website, he says, “When they decided to put the show together, they called my agent, and said ‘we’d like to talk to Johnny Gilbert about being the announcer on the show’ and at this point Alex and I are the only two people of the original cast of Jeopardy. The show is a family, and that is another thing I think that has made it such a success. Whenever you have a good show, you have a good family, and we do. Our people have worked with us for years. We don’t get changes in turnovers on our show. All of the people to cast the staff, everybody work so closely together. I think it’s in a word we’re very proud of.” Alex and Johnny are very close, and it’s hard to think that Johnny will ever have the same happy cheery voice he has, because it will not be the same without Alex.

James, Brad, and Ken

James Holzhauer (far left), Brad Rutter (far right), and Ken Jennings (middle), were all long-time contestants, who grew close to Alex. James played a miraculous 33 games, and won 2,464,216 Brad played only 5, but won 4.6 million dollars in total, and Ken Jennings played 74 games, and won 3,370,700 dollars. It is said that Ken played so much, he ran out of ideas for the interview, so he and Alex had to start improvising, so he could have a story. Not much news was reported about Brad Rutter, but I found that they knew each other and talked to each other on and behind the scenes, and became friends. James Holzhauer became very comfortable with the show. In the first episode, James wore a suit, and in the later episodes, he started wearing casual clothes. And also in the later episodes, the interviews started going towards the show, and he and Alex became good friends. Some people say Ken is also an option to replace the beloved host.

The Contributions

When everyone found out about Alex’s condition, contestants started wearing purple ribbons, as recognition for his pancreatic cancer. They had them in actually a lot of episodes, and then stopped. Also, in one of the episodes, they had a contribution to him, that was very sad...anyway, Alex was so beloved. He is a household name that no one can forget.

This is Jeopardy.