Answer: This Canadian born U.S. citizen became the longest running game show host in American TV
That’s how the clues and responses would be formulated for the game of Jeopardy!, the popular quiz show. I had the fortune of working on the show for 18 years, as a researcher. My job was to fact check and double source the clues our writers came up with. The integrity of the material was and is a big deal for the show: our fans take it seriously. (I’ve been away from the job for 12 years now, and I still identify with it, hence the “our”. It’s a big chunk of my life.) And Alex always took that integrity of the material seriously. I joined the staff in May of 1990, and the syndicated version with Alex had been on for 7 years at that point.
Starting on the show was interesting for me as a writer. I loved doing research, so the job was ideal for me. But working behind the scenes, I became aware that the Image of a notable person in Hollywood is often at odds with the private person away from the cameras. This isn’t to say that Alex wasn’t smart or gracious to people: he was, always. But that beautifully suited gentleman who read out the clues on the show was “public Alex.” On tape days (yes, it’s recorded digitally now, but the lingo holds on), he’d arrive early, driving himself, wearing well-worn jeans, a comfortable sort of pull-over shirt, obviously comfortable loafers, and usually a baseball cap to keep the sun out of his eyes.
The tape day routine for him began with him settling into his office to read through the day’s scripts (Standards and Practices would have already made the game selections and order from the prepared pool of games). He’d make notes of things he questioned, or pronunciations he wanted checked. After he’d done his personal read-through, the morning meeting happened, where he sat down with the writers and the producer, and went through all the games. We researchers needed to be on our toes at this point, because someone at the table might request a double check of some fact, or Alex would want the correct pronunciation of some place name. He always took care about that. He once made the observation that the fans of a particular location get really piqued when their hometown’s name or local feature is mispronounced. That’s why I kept a personal copy of Webster’s Geographical Dictionary at hand. But there were times when I had to call a foreign consulate to check on a pronunciation. Some viewers considered this snobbish showing off on Alex’s part, but truly, for him it was always about “It’s someone’s home town. Respect that.”
Now, don’t get the idea that he was all stiff and fuddy-duddy about all this. He was smart, there’s no doubt about that. Every season, he made a point of taking that season’s Contestant Test, for his own satisfaction. It was his way of staying on par with the contestants. But don’t ask me how well he’d do on it, I don’t know. Pretty well, I’d guess, though. And in spite of his decorum on camera, he could get pretty salty off camera, and off the leash. It was even an issue at home for him, when his children were still small. (I recall a rumor about a Swearing Jar, with a 25 cents fee for each bit of profanity. At home, that is. He didn’t censor himself in the office.) But for all that, he never used dubious language to insult anyone present. He always treated the people around him with civility.
He tried to be as “uncelebrity” as possible, although given the popularity of the show, that wasn’t easy. When he finally became an American citizen, he was very proud of having made that choice. And as it happened, very soon after he did become a citizen, he got that notice of civic participation: a call to jury duty. At that time, the jury system had people show up at the jury room for the courts for 10 days, sitting in the jury room waiting for any trial that needed a panel. He actually did get placed on a jury. I happened to get jury duty the very next week after his jury duty was finished, and I recall sitting out in the corridor with the pool I was in waiting to go in for selection, and I overheard down the hallway some guy in another group, also waiting, talking about how Alex Trebek had been in a jury group with him the previous week! There was someone who had a cool celebrity story for the rest of his life. But Alex was proud of being “just another citizen,” answering that civic duty.
One thing that viewers of Jeopardy! only got to see flashes of on the show was Alex’s sharp, witty sense of humor. Being as smart as he was, he was quick with comebacks, and he delighted in getting out the sly response. One of my favorite memories of him was when he guested on Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect the same evening as Jerry Seinfeld. My friend Jennifer Oliver O’Connell, in her obituary for Alex, reposted my earlier comments about that evening. What I didn’t say in that version was … (okay, I’m not a big Seinfeld fan) I was amused by the quiet, slow burn from Jerry as the program progressed, while Alex not only got his witty retort to Maher in faster than Jerry, he was also getting more and bigger laughs than Jerry. No, Jerry didn’t say anything about it, but there were a number of smoking glances cast by the comedian at the game show host who was upstaging him.
But Alex wasn’t one to make things “all about him.” In February 2001, the staff and crew of the show all headed to Las Vegas, where the International Tournament of Champions was going to be taped at the Las Vegas Hilton (now known as the Westgate). We all piled into chartered buses at the airport for the jaunt to the hotel. As we pulled up, the big marquee out front splashed in HUGE letters: JEOPARDY! STARRING ALEX TREBEK. Alex promptly went straight to the management and made them change the wording to “hosted by.” Many times while I worked on the show I heard him say “I’m not the star of the show. The contestants are!” And he really, really meant it. (And yes, the hotel changed the marquee as quickly as possible.)
Still, there’s no denying that he was a star and he’d earned that status. For the staff of a long running show like Jeopardy! when the holiday season came round, there was the challenging question of “what do you get him?” After all, he was pulling in a hefty paycheck, and it wasn’t like we had to cater to his vanity. The early years I was on staff, we thought up some nice gifts, but quickly ran out of ideas. We did know that Alex liked do-it-yourself handyman projects at home. So someone brilliantly came up with the idea of getting him a gift certificate from Home Depot. Turns out, it was the best choice possible: a five year old kid with a red wagon could not have been happier than Alex Trebek with a nice big gift certificate and free run of Home Depot.
He was always gracious, and tried to be as accessible as possible, without making scenes. At one Christmas party for the staff, held at a brewery restaurant in Burbank, he’d been making the rounds of the room with his wife as everyone was getting seated. I happened to end up at a small four-top by myself, and Alex and Jean asked to join me. Of course! I enjoyed their low-key company and how down to earth both of them were. That’s the way Alex wanted to be in public when he could. When the show taped a College Tournament at the university in Atlanta, as soon as we finished the taping, we all had to rush back to the airport to catch our scheduled flight. I and one of my friends on staff, Jeff Pierson, happened to be sitting along a wall with our carry on bags on a seat between us. I happened to glance up and noticed Alex slowly wandering into the passenger waiting area for our flight. I realized he didn’t want to disappear into some celebrity lounge, but rather to be seen out in public like everyone else. But he also looked a little wary about sitting just anywhere, because he didn’t want to be mobbed after an intense two days of location shooting. I told Jeff to clear off our extra seat and leave it open. I figured if it just looked like Alex had taken an “ordinary” empty seat, it would satisfy Alex’s desire to be “just like ordinary people,” and yet know he actually had two staffers to play buffer if needed. The general public wouldn’t know Jeff and I were staffers, since neither of us had anything with the show’s name on it visible. Sure enough, Alex took the seat (no, I didn’t have to signal or say anything), and waited like the rest of us for the trip back to LA. Like I said, there’s no denying he was a star, but I understood his desire to stay connected with the ordinary folks.
He also did not like to make a big deal out of his charity work. One of my church friends was a professor at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, and one Sunday he caught up to me (not difficult, as I was an usher) and mentioned that he’d been at a World Vision banquet the night before, and had been surprised that Alex had been the guest speaker. He hadn’t known that Alex had been so involved with the organization prior to that. But even though Alex didn’t want to have a fuss made about his celebrity for his own sake, he used it for others in some ways. He would take part in USO tours, visiting military personnel stationed overseas. But he would tell USO to send him places where they don’t usually get celebrity visits (contestant coordinators for the show would usually go along, looking for possible contestants among the troops). He liked making those trips and meeting the men and women serving in our armed forces.
These are just some highlights from my years working on the show. They glow bright in my memory, with a lot of satisfaction of working on such a high quality program and with such an agreeable colleague.
Sunday morning, I had slept in a bit, as I’d been working late on a challenging editing job for a client. My landlady requested my help in dealing with a situation with one of the other renters. She’s from the Philippines, and when she gets agitated her English gets a bit more tangled. Just at that moment, I got a message on my phone from a friend simply saying “I’m sorry to hear about old boss.” That was the first I knew of it, but I knew exactly who my friend meant. But the household situation made it difficult to react to the personal news just then. I really needed time to process the loss, and reflect on all the good times I’d seen Alex in action.
Smart is cool. Smart can be funny. Smart can be civil. Being civil can be cool. And Alex Trebek was all that. I’m so glad I had the chance to work with him, knowing him that long. My thoughts and prayers go out to Jean and all his family and friends, and people who have known and worked with him in all his areas of interest. Farewell, Alex, and God bless!
