Who Is Alex Trebek?: A Biography

Rogak (Rachel Maddow) doesn’t impress in her latest celebrity biography, a superficial look at game show host Alex Trebek that adds little to what’s been written before. Trebek was born in 1940 in Sudbury, Ontario, and had an unremarkable childhood as a bookworm with an insatiable curiosity. While he dreamed of a career as a pilot, doctor, or politician as a child, he never pursued those paths. After college, he became a part-time radio announcer for the CBC, which led to his career in entertainment. He spent over 13 years at the CBC, then headed to L.A. in in 1972, where he hosted a variety of TV game shows before getting his big break with Jeopardy!, a position that led to him becoming a cultural icon, and to polling as one of the most trusted people in America. Rogak carries the story through to early 2020, when a diagnosis of stage IV pancreatic cancer threatened to end his career. The book is hampered by trite prose (“Between books and maps, he knew there was a big world out there, and he wanted to learn all about it”) and never manages to get deeper than surface level. Jeopardy!’s many fans would do well to wait for Trebek’s forthcoming autobiography. (July)