Christmasis still five days away, butAlex Trebekhas already made this holiday season one for the books.
As it turns out, Trebek, 79, had long dreamt of having the American singer/songwriter perform for him and even tried to bring his music to theJeopardy! stage before finding out that it was out of budget.
Fast forward to this year, when Trebek began researching whether the “American Pie” crooner was still performing while planning his party — and ‘lo and behold, he was.
“I sent an email to Don’s people on his website and here we are tonight,” Trebek told the audience at the party. “I can officially take this off of my bucket list. This was a real treat for me.”
“I had never met Alex and normally I just come in and do my thing,” said McLean, 74. “When I arrived, Alex handed me a piece of paper with a list of songs he wanted me to perform and in the order he wanted them performed in. Then when I looked next to each song, he had timed them out.”
In addition to McLean, comedian Paula Poundstone also surprised the crowd with a performance.
It’s been achallenging yearfor Trebek, whoannounced his diagnosis with stage 4 pancreatic cancerin March.
During his cancer battle, the star has often expressed how much he’s appreciated the ongoing outpouring of love and well wishes from fans around the world. In May,he told PEOPLEthat he had been responding extremely well to his first round of chemotherapy.
“I’ve got a couple million people out there who have expressed their good thoughts, their positive energy directed towards me and their prayers,” he said. “I told the doctors, this has to be more than just the chemo, and they agree it could very well be an important part of this.”
Alex Trebek.Frederick M. Brown/Getty
In September, he announced that he was once againundergoing chemotherapy.
“I was doing so well and my numbers went down to the equivalent of a normal human being who does not have pancreatic cancer, so we were all very optimistic,” he said onGood Morning America. “They said, ‘Good, we’re going to stop chemo, we’ll start you on immunotherapy,’ and I lost about 12 lbs. in a week and my numbers went sky-high, much higher than they were when I was first diagnosed.”
While he toldGMAat the time that he hoped to continue hostingJeopardy!for as long as he could, he said in October that there may be a point in the not-too-distant future when he has to step away from the beloved game show.
source: people.com
