<img src="https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/26/0/0/2200/1332/664/0/75/0/0f8bf34_2023-08-26t182132z-1603949196-rc2tv2a5k9ke-rtrmadp-3-people-bob-barker.JPG" srcset=" https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/26/0/0/2200/1332/556/0/75/0/0f8bf34_2023-08-26t182132z-1603949196-rc2tv2a5k9ke-rtrmadp-3-people-bob-barker.JPG 556w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/26/0/0/2200/1332/600/0/75/0/0f8bf34_2023-08-26t182132z-1603949196-rc2tv2a5k9ke-rtrmadp-3-people-bob-barker.JPG 600w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/26/0/0/2200/1332/664/0/75/0/0f8bf34_2023-08-26t182132z-1603949196-rc2tv2a5k9ke-rtrmadp-3-people-bob-barker.JPG 664w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/26/0/0/2200/1332/700/0/75/0/0f8bf34_2023-08-26t182132z-1603949196-rc2tv2a5k9ke-rtrmadp-3-people-bob-barker.JPG 700w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/08/26/0/0/2200/1332/800/0/75/0/0f8bf34_2023-08-26t182132z-1603949196-rc2tv2a5k9ke-rtrmadp-3-people-bob-barker.JPG 800w" sizes="(min-width: 1024px) 556px, 100vw" alt="Bob Barker, host of " the="" price="" is="" right,"="" reacts="" at="" close="" of="" a="" taping="" show="" cbs="" studios="" in="" los="" angeles,="" august="" 31,="" 2006.="" "="" width="100%" height="auto">
Popular game show host Bob Barker, a household name for a half-century as host of "Truth or Consequences" and "The Price Is Right," has died at his home in Los Angeles. Barker was 99. He died Saturday, August 26, according to publicist Roger Neal.
Barker retired 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." 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.
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.
Meanwhile, he began hosting a resurrected version of "The Price Is Right" in 1972. 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-'90s. In all, he taped more than 5,000 shows in his career.
Born in Darrington, Washington, in 1923, Barker spent part of his childhood on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where his widowed mother had taken a teaching job. The family later moved to Springfield, Mo., where he attended high school. He served in the Navy in World War II.
He married Dorothy Jo Gideon, his high school sweetheart; she died in 1981 after 37 years of marriage. They had no children.
Barker was given a lifetime achievement award at the 26th annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 1999. He closed his acceptance remarks with the signoff: "Have your pets spayed or neutered."