Alex Trebek wants Betty White to take over from him as the host of 'Jeopardy!'.

The 79-year-old television star is currently battling stage four pancreatic cancer and knows he won't be able to keep hosting the game show forever, and so has named Betty, 98, as his successor.

When asked who should replace him, he said: ''I say Betty White. They want somebody younger, somebody funnier, she checks all those boxes. Betty and I have been friends for a long, long time.''

Alex says he will ''walk away'' from the game show eventually, but wants to continue hosting it until he has to ''crawl'' from the set.

He added: ''I think I will [walk away]. Well, maybe I misrepresent myself when I say I will walk away, maybe I will crawl away.''

The show host has been wearing a hairpiece to film 'Jeopardy!' because his cancer treatment is causing him to lose his hair, and has said he'll ditch the wig once he retires from the spotlight.

Speaking to 'Good Morning America', he explained: ''This is not me and as long as I am on chemotherapy this will always be here when I am in public and that's fine. If I were no longer hosting the program I would not be wearing the hairpiece.''

Meanwhile, Alex recently said he plans to stop his cancer treatment if his current course fails.

The New York Times wrote in an article about the star: ''After some encouraging news from doctors last year, Trebek's prognosis has worsened. If his current course of cancer treatment fails, he plans to stop treatment, he said.''

But the star praised his wife, Jeanie, for being a ''saint'' throughout his battle, despite feeling like a ''burden to her''.

He said: ''There was one day a few weeks ago when [my wife] Jeanie asked me in the morning, 'How do you feel?' And I said, 'I feel like I wanna die.' It was that bad. I apologise to her and explain that it has nothing to do with my love for her or my feelings for her. It just has to do with the fact that I feel like I'm a terrible burden to her, and that bothers me tremendously.

''She's a saint. She has so much goodness in her that she is always giving out, always putting out to help me get over difficult moments. And there have been some difficult moments. I'm just in awe of the way she handles it.''