Bob Barker, retired host of The Price Is Right and animal advocate, dead at 99
Barker also served as host of Truth or Consequences during decades-long TV career
Bob Barker, the enduring, dapper game show host who became a household name over a half-century of hosting Truth or Consequences and The Price Is Right, has died. He was 99.
Barker, who was also a longtime animal rights activist, died Saturday morning at his home in Los Angeles, publicist Roger Neal said.
"I am so proud of the trailblazing work Barker and I did together to expose the cruelty to animals in the entertainment industry and including working to improve the plight of abused and exploited animals in the United States and internationally," Nancy Burnet, his longtime friend and the co-executor of his estate, said in a statement.
Barker's animal advocacy saw him make trips to Canada on occasion, including when advocating for the removal of elephants from captivity in zoos in Edmonton and Toronto. He also opposed the Calgary Stampede's rodeo and publicly weighed in on pending legislation banning the breeding and acquisition of killer whales in Ontario.
He retired from his television work in June 2007, telling his studio audience: "I thank you, thank you, thank you for inviting me into your home for more than 50 years."
From radio to TV
Barker was working in radio in 1956 when producer Ralph Edwards invited him to audition as the new host of Truth or Consequences, a game show in which audience members had to do wacky stunts — the "consequence" — if they failed to answer a question — the "truth," which was always the silly punchline to a riddle no one was ever meant to furnish. (Q: What did one eye say to another? A: Just between us, something smells.)
In a 1996 interview with The Associated Press, Barker recalled receiving the news that he had been hired.
"I know exactly where I was, I know exactly how I felt: I hung up the phone and said to my wife, 'Dorothy Jo, I got it!'"
Barker stayed with Truth or Consequences for 18 years — including several years in a syndicated version.
An even longer gig
Meanwhile, Barker began hosting a resurrected version of The Price Is Right in 1972. (The original host in the 1950s and '60s was Bill Cullen.)
It would become TV's longest-running game show and the last on a broadcast network of what in TV's early days had numbered dozens.
"I have grown old in your service," the silver-haired, perennially tanned Barker joked on a prime-time television retrospective in the mid-1990s.
CBS said in a statement that daytime television has lost one of its "most iconic stars."
"We lost a beloved member of the CBS family today with the passing of Bob Barker. During his 35 years as host of THE PRICE IS RIGHT, Bob made countless people's dreams come true and everyone feel like a winner when they were called to 'come on down.' In addition to his legendary 50-year career in broadcasting, Bob will be remembered as a dedicated animal rights activist."
In all, Barker taped more than 5,000 shows during his career.
He said he was retiring because "I'm just reaching the age where the constant effort to be there and do the show physically is a lot for me.... Better [to leave] a year too soon than a year too late."
Comedian Drew Carey was chosen to replace him.
Barker was back with Carey for one show broadcast after his retirement.
'Guests in my home'
Barker was there to promote the publication of his memoir, Priceless Memories, in which he summed up his joy from hosting the show as the opportunity "to watch people reveal themselves and to watch the excitement and humour unfold."
"There hasn't been a day on set that I didn't think of Bob Barker and thank him. I will carry his memory in my heart forever," Carey wrote in a post on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
Barker well understood the attraction of The Price Is Right, in which audience members — invited to "Come on down!" to the stage — competed for prizes by trying to guess their retail value.
"Everyone can identify with prices, even the president of the United States. Viewers at home become involved because they all have an opinion on the bids," Barker once said.
His own appeal was clear: Barker played it straight — warm, gracious and witty — refusing to mock the game show format or his contestants.
"I want the contestants to feel as though they're guests in my home," he said in 1996. "Perhaps my feeling of respect for them comes across to viewers, and that may be one of the reasons why I've lasted."
An old-school approach
As a TV personality, Barker retained a touch of the old school — for instance, no wireless microphone for him.
Like the mic itself, the mic cord served him well as a prop, insouciantly flicked and finessed. His career longevity, he said, was the result of being content.
Barker also spent 20 years as host of the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Universe Pageant.
A longtime animal rights activist who daily urged his viewers to "have your pets spayed or neutered" and successfully lobbied to ban fur coats as prizes on The Price Is Right, he eventually quit the Miss USA Pageant in protest over the presentation of fur coats to the winners.
In 1997, Barker declined to be a presenter at the Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony because he said it snubbed game shows by not airing awards in the category. He called game shows "the pillars of daytime TV."
In 1994, the widowed Barker was sued for sexual harassment by Dian Parkinson, a Price is Right model for 18 years. Barker admitted engaging in "hanky panky" with Parkinson from 1989 to 1991, but he said she initiated the relationship. Parkinson dropped the lawsuit in 1995, saying it was hurting her health.
Barker became embroiled in a dispute with another former Price Is Right model, Holly Hallstrom, who claimed she was fired in 1995 because the show's producers believed she was fat. Barker denied the allegations.
Neither uproar affected his goodwill from the audience.
With files from CBC News