The answer is: A contestant Tuesday on the nationally syndicated quiz show “Jeopardy” and a 41-year-old Gorham homemaker.
The question is: Who is Suzanne Ennis?
Ennis finished third on “Jeopardy,” which was taped in September, but nonetheless was thrilled to be on her favorite show. “It’s like being in a special, revered place like the White House,” Ennis said about the Culver City, Calif., studio where the show is taped.
The show’s host, Alex Trebek, said on air that it wasn’t her best day. “He looked at me and seemed to be sympathetic,” she said.
Tuesday night’s winner had beaten a previous five-time champ. “These young guys with their video games tend to do well ringing in. They’re hard to beat,” Trebek told her afterward.
Although she finished last behind two young men, she picked up $1,000 for third and was still excited.
“This is the best show in the world to lose on because everyone loves it,” she recalled telling Trebek.
As a regular part of the show, Trebek takes a break after an initial round to ask each contestant a question. The show’s staff had asked Ennis to give them three personal anecdotes, but she didn’t know which one Trebek would ask her about.
He asked her about her motto, “Don’t drive yourself to your own wedding.” She explained to Trebek that she actually had driven herself to her own wedding, wearing her wedding dress and with her parents as passengers.
She told millions of viewers how someone during the wedding pointed out she had locked her keys in the car. She just shrugged. “But it’s running,” she was told.
Behind the scenes
She and her husband, John Ennis, and their son, John, 9, spent four nights in Los Angeles, Calif., after she earned the appearance on the show. She applied at a live tryout for the show at the Yarmouth Clam Festival last July and was one of 80 from 1,000 to advance.
In the next step, she was one of 15 chosen in a mock “Jeopardy” conducted at the Sheraton hotel in South Portland.
“I was called six weeks later,” said, Ennis, who works at Sears.
She described the “Jeopardy” studio as being just like it appears on TV, with a board with the question categories. She said the cabinet in front of each contestant was filled with electronics. She said the set had three cameras and she wore a lapel microphone with a power pack clipped on her back.
Ennis said the studio was “extremely cold” to offset heat from the lighting, and the stage crew wore sweaters and jackets. During breaks, she said, Trebek joked with the crew and the audience.
“We got to see the behind-the-scenes Alex,” she said.
She wasn’t nervous on air, after three 20-to-30-minute rehearsals. “Jeopardy” staff advised her on what to wear, and she was asked to take two changes of wardrobe in case she won. “Jeopardy” shoots several shows in one day.
“They said, ‘Come to the studio camera ready,'” she said.
She bought makeup at Wal-Mart before she and her family left for the West Coast. After arriving at the studio, she learned the show provided makeup and a woman to apply it. Makeup took about 10 minutes.
“She touched up my makeup during the commercial,” Ennis said. “It was a special treat being pampered.”
Before the taping, Ennis and other contestants waited together in a separate room. Her husband and son were in the audience when she played “Jeopardy,” but she wasn’t allowed to look at them.
“During the show, we can’t have eye contact with them,” she said.
The set was lighted, but the audience was illuminated only for camera shots. An audience light signaled when to applaud. Her son said microphones were five or six feet above the audience.
Watching the show
Ennis watched the show with a group of friends at the Gorham House, a home for the elderly, when it aired Tuesday night. Ennis leads a weekly Rosary prayer meeting there.
Peg Kirkpatrick, a resident at the Gorham House, hosted a group of eight women and one man in her apartment to view the program with Ennis. Kirkpatrick and her granddaughter, Laura D’Angelo of Cape Elizabeth, served refreshments while friends waited for the show to begin.
“She wasn’t afraid to answer,” said Kirkpatrick, who said she has a great admiration for anyone willing to appear on the show. “She’s amazing.”
“My brother called from Pennsylvania and said, turn on your TV,” said Mary Jane Palomaki, one of the residents at the Gorham House who came to watch the show in Kirkpatrick’s apartment. “I don’t know how he knew.”
The group of friends was intent during the show. “We were awful quiet,” Geri Bartholomew said.
She said Ennis wasn’t nervous. “She had a lot of courage,” Bartholomew said.
Gorham House resident Lillian Grant, 92, watched Kirkpatrick’s TV, but she didn’t know Ennis. “Anything we can associate with Gorham is interesting,” Grant said.
Ennis isn’t eligible to reappear on “Jeopardy,” but she hopes her husband and son will be contestants. When he turns 10, her son will be eligible.
And he’s psyched for it.
“The kids’ tournament is totally easy,” said her son.
Jeopardy contestant Suzanne Ennis of Gorham meets the show
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