TV
Barker handed away at his dwelling in Los Angeles, in accordance with his publicist.
A publicist says widespread sport present host Bob Barker, a family identify for a half-century as host of “Reality or Penalties” and “The Value Is Proper,” has died at his dwelling in Los Angeles. Barker was 99.
Barker died Saturday morning, in accordance with publicist Roger Neal.
Barker retired in June 2007, telling his studio viewers: “I thanks, thanks, thanks for inviting me into your own home for greater than 50 years.”
Barker was working in radio in 1956 when producer Ralph Edwards invited him to audition as the brand new host of “Reality or Penalties,” a sport present wherein viewers members needed to do wacky stunts — the “consequence” — in the event that they did not reply a query — the “fact,” which was at all times the foolish punchline to a riddle nobody was ever meant to furnish. (Q: What did one eye say to a different? A: Simply between us, one thing smells.)
In a 1996 interview with The Related Press, Barker recalled receiving the information that he had been employed: “I do know precisely the place I used to be, I do know precisely how I felt: I hung up the telephone and mentioned to my spouse, ‘Dorothy Jo, I acquired it!’”
Barker stayed with “Reality or Penalties” for 18 years — together with a number of years in a syndicated model.
In the meantime, he started internet hosting a resurrected model of “The Value Is Proper” in 1972. (The unique host within the Nineteen Fifties and ’60s was Invoice Cullen.) It will grow to be TV’s longest-running sport present and the final on a broadcast community of what in TV’s early days had numbered dozens.
“I’ve grown outdated in your service,” the silver-haired, perennially tanned Barker joked on a prime-time tv retrospective within the mid-’90s.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 simply reaching the age the place the fixed effort to be there and do the present bodily is rather a lot for me. … Higher (to go away) a 12 months too quickly than a 12 months too late.” Comic Drew Carey was chosen to switch him.
Barker was again with Carey for one present broadcast in April 2009. He was there to advertise the publication of his memoir, “Priceless Recollections,” wherein he summed up his pleasure from internet hosting the present as the chance “to observe folks reveal themselves and to observe the joy and humor unfold.”
He nicely understood the attraction of “The Value Is Proper,” wherein viewers members — invited to “Come on down!” to the stage — competed for prizes by attempting to guess their retail worth.
“Everybody can determine with costs, even the president of the USA. Viewers at dwelling grow to be concerned as a result of all of them 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 need the contestants to really feel as if they’re visitors in my dwelling,” he mentioned in 1996. “Maybe my feeling of respect for them comes throughout to viewers, and that could be one of many the reason why I’ve lasted.”
As a TV persona, Barker retained a contact of the old fashioned — for example, no wi-fi microphone for him. Just like the mic itself, the mic twine served him nicely as a prop, insouciantly flicked and finessed.
His profession longevity, he mentioned, was the results of being content material. “I had the chance to do this sort of present and I found I loved it … Individuals who do one thing that they completely take pleasure in they usually began doing it after they’re very younger, I don’t assume they need to cease.”
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 Value Is Proper,” he stop 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 sport reveals by not airing awards within the class. He referred to as sport reveals “the pillars of daytime TV.”
He had a memorable cameo look on the large display in 1996, sparring with Adam Sandler within the film “Glad Gilmore.” “I did `The Value Is Proper’ for 35 years, they usually’re asking me the way it was to beat up Adam Sandler,” Barker later joked.
In 1994, the widowed Barker was sued for sexual harassment by Dian Parkinson, a “Value is Proper” mannequin for 18 years. Barker admitted participating 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 “Value Is Proper” 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 Battle II.
He married Dorothy Jo Gideon, his highschool sweetheart; she died in 1981 after 37 years of marriage. That 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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