Longtime Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek has passed away at the age of 80.
Trebek was born in Sudbury, Ontario and attended the University of Ottawa before beganing his career in broadcast news in 1961. After moving to the United States and working short hosting stints on several game shows in the 70s, Trebek became host of the daily syndicated version of Jeopardy! when it premiered in 1984, a role he held up until his passing.
In 2014, Guinness World Records presented Trebek with the world record for most episodes of a game show hosted, with 6,829 episodes at the time. In 2017, Trebek was named an officer of the Order of Canada and is one of the few celebrities to have both a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Canadian Walk of Fame.
In March, 2019, Trebek announced that he had been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Trebek said in a video statement that his prognosis was grim but that he would fight the disease as aggressively as he could and that would continue to host Jeopardy! for as long as possible.
That spring, Trebek provided an update stating that he was responding well to treatments and would undergo several more rounds of chemotherapy. He finished that round of chemotherapy treatments and resumed taping of the show in August 2019.
In one of the latest updates during the summer of 2020, Trebek said that chemotherapy had been "paying off" and although he felt fatigued, he was looking forward to taping the show again. That summer he also released an autobiography titled The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life, with all proceeds from book sales going to charity.
The official Twitter account for Jeopardy! announced Trebek's passing on Sunday afternoon, saying that he had passed away peacefully on Sunday morning.
https://twitter.com/Jeopardy/status/1325490106329751553