2023-08-27 05:02:02
Bob Barker, the stylish host who achieved great fame in American homes for more than half a century with his game shows “Truth or Consequences” and “The Price Is Right,” has passed away. He was 99 years old.
Barker, also an animal rights activist, died Saturday morning at his home in Los Angeles, his agent Roer Neal said.
“I am very proud of the pioneering work Barker and I did together to expose cruelty to animals in the entertainment industry, and even work to improve the situation for abused and exploited animals in the United States and internationally,” she said. in a statement Nancy Burnet, a longtime friend and co-executor of the former presenter’s estate.
Barker retired in June 2007 with his announcement to a studio audience: “I thank you, thank you, thank you for inviting me into your homes for over 50 years.”
Barker was working for radio in 1956 when producer Ralph Edwards invited him to audition as the new host of “Truth or Consequences,” a show in which audience members might participate in some outlandish stunt—the “consequence”—if they didn’t they managed to answer a question—the “truth”—which was the final joke of a riddle impossible to answer. (Question: What did one eye say to the other eye? Answer: Here between us, something smells bad).
In a 1996 interview with The Associated Press, Barker recalled being told he’d been hired: “I know exactly where I was, I know exactly how I felt: I hung up the phone and said to my wife, ‘Doroti Jo, I got it!’ ”
Barker lasted 18 years with “Truth or Consequences”, including several years in its version for different television networks.
Meanwhile, he was beginning to host the resurrected version of “The Price Is Right” that would air on CBS in 1972. (The show’s original host in the 1950s and ’60s was Bill Cullen.) The game show would become the longest running on television and the last in contrast to the dozens that existed at the beginning.
“I grew old in your service,” Barker, with his permanent tan and gray hair, quipped in a prime-time television flashback to 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,” the television network said. “He made the dreams of countless people come true and everyone felt like a winner when they said ‘come here,’” he added.
In all, Barker recorded over 5,000 shows in his career. He said he was leaving because “I’m getting to an age where the continued effort of being there and physically doing the show is too much for me…“Better (to leave) a year too soon than a year too late”. He was replaced by comedian Drew Carey.
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