Alex Trebeks widow, Jean, shares a photo from the couples wedding day in 1990 thanking fans – Daily Mail

The widow of Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek has shared a photo from the couple’s wedding 30 years ago.

Jean Trebek, 56, posted a picture to Instagram of the moment Alex, dressed in a white dinner jacket and black bow tie, slid a ring onto his wife’s finger.

Trebek got married to Jean six years after he began hosting the hit TV game show in 1984. 

‘My family and I sincerely thank you all for your compassionate messages and generosity. Your expressions have truly touched our hearts. Thank you so very, very much,’ Jean wrote in the post. 

‘Sometimes you look at something, you look at someone, and you know,’ Trebek wrote in his memoir about his then future wife.

‘I mean, you’ve heard stories of people who meet and decide within half an hour; I knew this was going to be the person I’d end up with. With Jeanie that’s how it was.’

The couple had two children together, Emily and Matthew. 

Trebek was also close with his first wife’s daughter, Nicky. He married first wife Elaine Callei in 1974 and they divorced in 1981. 

Trebek had told how he wanted to spend his final day with Jean on their backyard swing set. A producer for the show said that he did exactly that. 

‘He had a swing in his backyard that he loved. He actually rebuilt it earlier this year… Even in his book he described that he wanted his final day to be sitting on his swing next to his wife Jean and watching the horizon and he got to do that,’ executive producer Mike Richards said to the Today Show on Monday.

‘He was coherent. He wasn’t in pain and the fact that he had a nice final day makes all of us in the Jeopardy! family feel much better,’ Richards added, speaking from the Jeopardy! set in Culver City, California. 

Trebek died on Sunday at the age of 80, and his passing was mourned by fans who called the brainy quizmaster a nightly source of information and sheer joy. 

He had hosted more than 8,200 episodes of Jeopardy! over 37 seasons. 

The death of Canadian-born Trebek, who in March 2019 revealed his diagnosis of stage IV pancreatic cancer, was shared on the show’s official Twitter account. 

Trebek passed away peacefully at home surrounded by family and friends, the show’s tweet said.  

Trebek said in September that he was responding exceptionally well to treatment for and had hoped to mark his two-year survival next February. 

The famed host admitted that his journey hadn’t been easy and told how he battled with bouts of ‘great depression’ throughout the process.  

He remained optimistic about reaching two years of recovery, though, with support from his wife and ‘soulmate’ Jean, in addition to the ‘millions of prayers’ sent from well-wishers around the world. 

‘The one year survival rate for stage 4 pancreatic cancer patients is 18 percent,’ he said. ‘I’m very happy to report I have just reached that marker,’ he said last February. 

‘I’d be lying if I said the journey had been an easy one,’ he admitted. ‘There were some good days but a lot of not so good days. I joked with friends that cancer won’t kill me, the chemo treatments will.

‘There were moments of great pain, days when certain bodily functions no longer functioned and sudden, massive attacks of great depression that made me wonder if it really was worth fighting on.’

Trebek did his best to release the challenging feelings surrounding his serious illness and focused on staying positive.