# Alex Trebek dead at 80 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** celebrity-death, reality-or-game-show\ **Created:** [March 6, 2019, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075 "2019-03-06T22:38:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/61 "2019-08-30T15:17:37Z")
He may be a smug little prick who overdoes the pronunciation of foreign words, but I’m glad that his family won’t be cashing in his Colonial Penn policy anytime soon. Keep up the good work, Alex! I don’t give any credits to prayers from the fans, sometimes treatments do work. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/62 "2019-08-30T19:46:50Z")
I’ll take “Fuck the odds” for 500 Alex. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2019, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/63 "2019-08-30T20:53:02Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Saw this on the news last night. He looked awfully good for a 79YO man with stage 4 cancer who had just been through chemo. He spoke (and shared pictures) of working on a bathroom remodeling job in his home while he was away from the show. Dude is some kind of outlier; the usual story you hear about chemo is that your hair falls out and you feel like shit the whole time with nausea, diarrhea, and general malaise. I don’t know about the rest, but he has lost his hair. He wore a hairpiece for the latter part of the last season. He talked about it in [this interview](https://www.cbsnews.com/video/preview-alex-trebek-on-chemotherapy-and-losing-his-hair/) with Jane Pauley. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/64 "2019-08-31T04:00:39Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Dude is some kind of outlier; the usual story you hear about chemo is that your hair falls out and you feel like shit the whole time with nausea, diarrhea, and general malaise. I’d always heard that to, but when it happened to me I learned that first of all, chemo isn’t just one thing. There are a number of chemo drugs, some pumped into a vein, some taken orally, and they all have different known side effects. My oncologist told me that the two drugs they gave me might make my hair thinner (yes, a little), but that I wasn’t likely to lose my hair (I didn’t). My expected side effects were diarrhea, cold sensitivity, exhaustion, and mild to severe nausea. I was also told not to sweat on anyone or get anyone pregnant. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2019, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/65 "2019-08-31T10:23:52Z")
There are also atypical reactions - my late spouse had old-school chemo that normally makes every hair on your body drop out. His didn’t. It got a bit thinner, but he still had a full head of hair when he died. He _did_ get the predicted diarrhea and nausea, although he didn’t throw up more than a couple times even though that was another expected side effect, he just felt queasy. I sometimes wonder if he had a natural resistance to some of the chemicals to begin with, which means his cancer would have had it, too, which was why it wasn’t that effective and soon stopped working entirely. Anyhow - if Mr. Trebeck is one of the lucky ones good for him. I hope he has good years ahead of him. But I worry about this sort of thing turned into a “Hallmark moment” - he’s talked a bit about how rough it’s been for him, but I’d like to see more about even when you’re one of the lucky ones who get to live it’s no picnic even if a hairpiece and make up can make you look good in front of the camera as you force yourself to go to work, and that even successful treatment leaves you with lingering problems and side effects that don’t go away. It’s never “yay! I’m cured and done with it!”, there are always follow-ups looking for recurrence, damage from treatments, and so forth. On the other hand - Trebeck is in no way required to become a spokesperson for anything unless he actually wants to do that. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2019, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/66 "2019-09-17T14:07:13Z")
Well, bugger: [Alex Trebek undergoing more chemotherapy after ‘Jeopardy!’ return](https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/alex-trebek-jeopardy-cancer-chemotherapy). > [@](#): > > Roughly a week after he triumphantly returned to “Jeopardy!,” Alex Trebek revealed he’s undergoing another round of chemotherapy to treat his pancreatic cancer. > > Trebek, 79, said in an interview published Tuesday his doctors think more chemotherapy is warranted after his “numbers went sky high” and he lost 12 pounds in just a week. > > “I was doing so well," the beloved host told ABC News. “My numbers went down to the equivalent of a normal human being who does not have pancreatic cancer. So we were all very optimistic. And they said, ‘Good, we’re gonna stop chemo, we’ll start you on immunotherapy.’” > > But soon after, his doctors decided Trebek needed to undergo more chemotherapy — “and that’s what I’m doing,” he said. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2019, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/67 "2019-09-17T15:33:26Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > He may be a smug little prick who overdoes the pronunciation of foreign words, but I’m glad that his family won’t be cashing in his Colonial Penn policy anytime soon. Keep up the good work, Alex! I don’t give any credits to prayers from the fans, sometimes treatments do work. Overdoing the foreign pronunciations wouldn’t bug me so much if he didn’t get so many of them completely wrong. For instance, he seems to have gotten it into his head that _every_ occurrence of ⟨st⟩ in German is pronounced like ⟨sh⟩ in English, leading to ludicrous realizations like “Bundeshtag” for _Bundestag_. It’s like he learns a general rule, assumes that there will never be any exceptions, and so never bothers to check with more knowledgeable speakers before embarrassing himself on national TV. That said, I still love the show and hope he continues hosting it for a further 35 years. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/68 "2019-09-17T23:48:49Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > Overdoing the foreign pronunciations wouldn’t bug me so much if he didn’t get so many of them completely wrong. For instance, he seems to have gotten it into his head that _every_ occurrence of ⟨st⟩ in German is pronounced like ⟨sh⟩ in English, leading to ludicrous realizations like “Bundeshtag” for _Bundestag_. It’s like he learns a general rule, assumes that there will never be any exceptions, and so never bothers to check with more knowledgeable speakers before embarrassing himself on national TV. I’ll give him a pass on this, since even Art Fleming occasionally mangled foreign words. F’rinstance, he never pronounced “Lenin” correctly, and nobody \*\*ever \*\*gets “Anastasia” right. Another very popular documentary host with whom I’ve worked made me wince when I heard his pronunciation of “Neglinnaya” in the finished film, a mistake I could easily have corrected if only he’d asked me. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/69 "2019-09-18T00:02:49Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > Overdoing the foreign pronunciations wouldn’t bug me so much if he didn’t get so many of them completely wrong. For instance, he seems to have gotten it into his head that _every_ occurrence of ⟨st⟩ in German is pronounced like ⟨sh⟩ in English, leading to ludicrous realizations like “Bundeshtag” for _Bundestag_. It’s like he learns a general rule, assumes that there will never be any exceptions, and so never bothers to check with more knowledgeable speakers before embarrassing himself on national TV. > > That said, I still love the show and hope he continues hosting it for a further 35 years. You can blame the directors/producers for this. Alex often blows a word during taping - when it is over he re-records words he messed up and they are spliced in afterwards. Happened quite often the day I was on. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2020, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/70 "2020-11-08T18:02:19Z")
> **[Alex Trebek Dead at 80 After Battling Pancreatic Cancer](https://www.tmz.com/2020/11/08/alex-trebek-jeopardy-host-dead-dies-stage-4-pancreatic-cancer/)** > > Alex Trebek has died at the age of 80. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2020, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/71 "2020-11-08T19:15:59Z")
Please see this thread: > [@RIP Alex Trebek](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-alex-trebek/925067): > > Posted in the Jeopardy thread, but deserving of its own thread, I think. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2020, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-trebek-dead-at-80/925075/72 "2020-11-08T19:16:10Z")
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