Longtime ‘The Price Is Right’ host Bob Barker dead at 99

Bob Barker, the longtime host of the TV recreation present “The Price Is Right,” has died on the age 99.

Roger Neal, his longtime publicist, made the announcement Saturday.

“It is with profound unhappiness that we announce that the World’s Greatest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker, has left us,” Neal mentioned in a press release.

“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,” mentioned Nancy Burnet, his longtime pal and caretaker, in a press release.

There was no instant reason for dying.

Barker was working in radio in 1956 when producer Ralph Edwards invited him to audition as the brand new host of “Truth or Consequences,” a recreation present wherein viewers members needed to do wacky stunts — the “consequence” — in the event that they didn’t reply a query — the “truth,” which was all the time the foolish punchline to a riddle nobody was ever meant to furnish. (Q: What did one eye say to a different? A: Just between us, one thing smells.)

In a 1996 interview with The Associated Press, Barker recalled receiving the news that he had been employed: “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 — together with a number of years in a syndicated model.

Meanwhile, he started internet hosting a resurrected model of “The Price Is Right” in 1972. (The unique host within the Fifties and ’60s was Bill Cullen.) It would turn into TV’s longest-running recreation present and the final on a broadcast community 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 tv retrospective within the mid-’90s.

In all, he taped greater than 5,000 reveals in his profession. He mentioned he was retiring as a result of “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 switch him.

Barker retired in June 2007, telling his studio viewers: “I thank you, thank you, thank you for inviting me into your home for more than 50 years.”

Barker was again with Carey for one present broadcast in April 2009. He was there to advertise the publication of his memoir, “Priceless Memories,” wherein he summed up his pleasure from internet hosting the present as the chance “to watch people reveal themselves and to watch the excitement and humor unfold.”

He effectively understood the attraction of “The Price Is Right,” wherein viewers members — invited to “Come on down!” to the stage — competed for prizes by attempting to guess their retail worth.

“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 as soon as mentioned. His personal enchantment was clear: Barker performed it straight — heat, gracious and witty — refusing to mock the sport present format or his contestants.

“I want the contestants to feel as though they’re guests in my home,” he mentioned 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.”

As a TV character, Barker retained a contact of the old fashioned — as an example, no wi-fi microphone for him. Like the mic itself, the mic twine served him effectively as a prop, insouciantly flicked and finessed.

His profession longevity, he mentioned, was the results of being content material. “I had the opportunity to do this type of show and I discovered I enjoyed it … People who do something that they thoroughly enjoy and they started doing it when they’re very young, I don’t think they want to stop.”

Barker additionally spent 20 years as host of the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Universe Pageant. A longtime animal rights activist who every day urged his viewers to “have your pets spayed or neutered” and efficiently lobbied to ban fur coats as prizes on “The Price Is Right,” he give up the Miss USA Pageant in 1987 in protest over the presentation of fur coats to the winners.

In 1997, he declined to be a presenter on the Daytime Emmy awards ceremony as a result of he mentioned it snubbed recreation reveals by not airing awards within the class. He referred to as recreation reveals “the pillars of daytime TV.”

He had a memorable cameo look on the large display screen in 1996, sparring with Adam Sandler within the film “Happy Gilmore.” “I did `The Price Is Right’ for 35 years, and they’re asking me how it was to beat up Adam Sandler,” Barker later joked.

In 1994, the widowed Barker was sued for sexual harassment by Dian Parkinson, a “Price is Right” mannequin for 18 years. Barker admitted partaking in “hanky panky” with Parkinson from 1989-91 however mentioned she initiated the connection. Parkinson dropped the lawsuit in 1995, saying it was hurting her well being.

Barker turned embroiled in a dispute with one other former “Price Is Right” mannequin, Holly Hallstrom, who claimed she was fired in 1995 as a result of the present’s producers believed she was fats. Barker denied the allegations.

Neither uproar affected his goodwill from the viewers.

Born in Darrington, Washington, in 1923, Barker spent a part of his childhood on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the place his widowed mom had taken a instructing job. The household later moved to Springfield, Mo., the place he attended highschool. He served within the Navy in World War II.

He married Dorothy Jo Gideon, his highschool sweetheart; she died in 1981 after 37 years of marriage. They had no kids.

Barker was given a lifetime achievement award on the twenty sixth annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 1999. He closed his acceptance remarks with the signoff: “Have your pets spayed or neutered.”

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