Alex Trebek Dies Of Pancreatic Cancer
Alex Trebek, host of Jeopardy! and a beloved television staple, passed away at 80 years old Sunday. Trebek had long been battling pancreatic cancer.
Variety reports that the Twitter account of Jeopardy announced the 80-year-old’s death. The quiz show that Trebek had hosted for more than three decades. The tweet said that Trebek was surrounded by friends and family when he died and passed peacefully.
In March of last year, Trebek had announced that he was battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and that the prognosis was not good. In an interview, the beloved host said that he was nearing the end of “a good life.”
Sony Pictures Television, the owner of Jeopardy!, has revealed that Trebek had been filming episodes until Oct. 29 and had enough episodes in the bank that could be shown until Christmas Day. The company, however, says there are still no plans to announce a successor to Trebek.
People quote Trebek’s recently released memoir with regard to his final wishes. In the book The Answer Is...Reflections On My Life, Trebek mused that he only wished to be remembered as a “good and loving husband and father.”
The book also included Trebek’s musings on the global coronavirus pandemic and how it might result in him spending his last days on the planet confined at home. He writes that sitting at home with his family would not be a bad way to go.
Trebek is the latest Hollywood death to grab headlines over the past few days. Just last week, Eddie Hassell of The Kids Are Alright, and Surface died after being shot during a carjacking. Besides those two projects, Hassell was also in projects like 2012, Joan of Arcadia, Bones, and Devious Maids.
In October, cancer also took away rock legend Eddie Van Halen. His passing was mourned by music fans as well as his fellow rock musicians such as Billy Idol, David Lee Roth, Lenny Kravitz, Sammy Hagar, Nikki Sixx, and Gene Simmons.
It was also cancer that took the life of Chadwick Boseman back in August. At the private memorial celebrating his death, his Black Panther co-stars Winston Duke, Michael B. Jordan, and Lupita Nyong’o were in attendance.
Two actresses from the Bond film Goldfinger also died this year -- Honor Blackman and Margaret Nolan. Blackman was known for her role as Pussy Galore, while Nolan was the iconic Goldfinger girl on the film’s promotional materials.
July saw a brain aneurysm take away the life of Grant Imahara, former host of the Discovery Channel show Mythbusters. Glee’s Naya Rivera also passed away in July of this year due to drowning.