A Jeopardy memory—and the poet behind it

“In 1950, he won a Tony for best play, and 18 years after his 1965 death, he would go on to win 2 Tonys for a musical.”

That Final Jeopardy answer today brought a big, bright smile to my face. My grin grew even broader when none of the three contestants on this Jeopardy! Invitational episode provided the correct question. None of their guesses were even close.

Why did that particular Jeopardy! Q and A, and the contestants’ failure, bring me so much pleasure? My schadenfreude was well earned. You see, in the late 1980s, I was faced with virtually the same Final Jeopardy answer when I stood across the podium from Alex Trebek on my 1988 Jeopardy! appearance. And I got it right.

Despite that final success, I finished in second place in my Jeopardy! game.

So much has changed since then. Instead of being a young dad, just beginning to find my way in the world of pathology and family life, I am now a happily retired grandfather of four. Alex Trebek has passed away; his duties are now assumed by Jeopardy!’s G.O.A.T, Ken Jennings. We stream the show, rather than watch it live.

And in those long-ago days, Jeopardy! didn’t have Invitational Tournaments or second-chance games. Like the NCAA College Basketball Tournament, contestants were one-and-done. If you lost a game, you were banished from the Kingdom of Jeopardy, forever. That game was my only appearance on national television.

Oh, the right question to that Final Jeopardy answer? It was a lot easier in 1988 than it is in 2026 to remember that the biggest musical of the 1980s, the Hamilton of its era, was Cats. Andrew Lloyd Webber gets most of the accolades for the felonious show, but few people then, and even fewer now, know the lyrics are based on a book of poetry, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot.

And T.S. Eliot is who those two Tonys went to. Even Trebek was surprised I got it right. But that one came easily—Eliot has always been my favorite poet. I just never knew he would come in so handy.