'Jeopardy!' insiders recall Trebek's final days in emotional podcast
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After longtime "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek announced his cancer diagnosis in 2019, producer Rocky Schmidt checked in on the quizmaster in between tapings.
Schmidt sometimes found Trebek on the floor of his dressing room, crying in pain.
Schmidt would offer to cancel the next taping, but Trebek would say, "Just give me a minute. Just give me a minute." Shortly after, he'd come out, ready for the show.
"Somehow, he rallied," Schmidt said in an episode of the "This Is Jeopardy! The Story of America's Favorite Quiz Show" podcast released Wednesday.
Schmidt joined the Trebek family and other show insiders on the podcast, taking listeners behind the scenes of the 20 months Trebek hosted the show while battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. They spoke about the ups and downs of that final stretch, chronicling the adjustments that were made from the moment Trebek told "Jeopardy!" showrunners about his diagnosis.
"I mean, we would have done anything," Schmidt said. "We'd have followed him anywhere."
By the time Trebek shared news of his diagnosis publicly in March 2019, he'd hosted "Jeopardy!" for more than three decades, becoming a nightly fixture for millions. Trebek acknowledged the poor prognosis of his disease but told fans in his announcement: "I'm going to fight this, and I'm going to keep working."
"Truth told, I have to, because under the terms of my contract, I have to host 'Jeopardy!' for three more years," Trebek added. "So help me. Keep the faith, and we'll win."
Trebek kept his promise to viewers for more than a year, until his death in late 2020. He continued taping while undergoing treatment, though it became more difficult as the months passed.
Schmidt recalled watching Trebek try to get to a conference room table for the show's morning meeting one day, thinking he wouldn't make it to his seat.
"Then he would leave and go to get made up and ready for the show, and everybody would look at each other and go, 'I don't know if we're going to be taping today,'" Schmidt said during the podcast episode, titled "So Long, Everybody!"
But they did tape, albeit with "constant" adjustments to make Trebek more comfortable while filming.
His makeup artist, Sandy Goodman, recalled receiving a call from Schmidt, who told her that Trebek was receiving a treatment that would change his appearance. He looked "blue-ish brown," according to Goodman.
She explained how she "neutralized" his complexion, tapping an orange base over his skin.
When Trebek began losing his hair because of his treatment, showrunners had wigs made. They remade those wigs when Trebek began losing weight and they no longer fit his scalp.
"He grumbled about that," said Harry Friedman, who was an executive producer on the show. "And he said, 'Oh okay, wait till I'm well, and I don't have to do this anymore.'"
Even as his health deteriorated, Trebek struggled to let others help him with his usual tasks, including driving. One afternoon, his daughter Nicky Trebek said she used one of the host's favorite words - "stupidity" - to persuade him to let her drive him back home from the set.
"Literally, if you drive home, Dad, it's pure stupidity," she recalled saying.
"All right," he grumbled in response. "You take me."
Throughout his treatment, Trebek received an outpouring of support from the public. Boxes of letters, blankets and prayer cards arrived from fans, according to Schmidt.
In September 2019, Trebek announced that he would be receiving additional treatment, just weeks after he said he had finished chemotherapy. During an episode around that time, contestant Dhruv Gaur used his Final Jeopardy! answer to pen a message for Trebek.
"What is We love you, Alex!" Gaur wrote, the "love" drawn as a heart.
The answer, which would soon go viral, left Gaur in third place with $5, and Trebek choked up as he continued on to the next contestant. All of the support Trebek received "buoyed him for a few months," his wife, Jean, said during the podcast.
Trebek taped his last game on Oct. 29, 2020, ending it by saying, "We'll see you again next week." He was set to take a brief pause from the show for a surgery.
But on the drive home that day, Nicky Trebek remembered asking her father: "Are you going to go back?"
"I don't think so, Nick," he said.
He died 10 days later.
The game show had rehearsal with a guest host on the day Trebek died, but it was canceled after producers heard the news.
"Jeopardy!" would go on to find new hosts, continuing as one of the longest-running television shows - but not without the remembrances and tributes to its iconic, beloved host. During Trebek's last episode, which aired posthumously, the show included a montage of his career and a dedication to him.
Johnny Gilbert, the game show's longtime announcer, said on the podcast that, on at least a few occasions, he was unsure if Trebek would walk onto the stage after his name was called.
"But the bottom line is, he always did," Gilbert said. "And when he came out on the stage, he was Alex Trebek."
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