Actors - Bob Barker

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	Actors - Bob Barker

Robert William Barker (born December 12, 1923 in Darrington, Washington) is an American television game show host best known for The Price Is Right.

Childhood

Born in Francesville, Indiana, he grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Rosebud, South Dakota, where his mother, Matilda ("Tilly") Valandra, was a schoolteacher. His father, Byron John Barker, was an electrical power foreman who lost his life in a fall from a utility pole in 1929. Bob has a half-brother, Kent Valandra, from Matilda's subsequent remarriage. Both Tilly and Kent have joined the studio audience for numerous tapings of "The Price is Right."

College

Barker attended Drury College in Springfield, Missouri on a basketball scholarship. He was a member of the Epsilon Beta Chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity at Drury. His education was interrupted by World War II. Barker served in the Navy as a fighter pilot. However, the war ended before he was assigned to a seagoing squadron. After the war, he returned to Drury to finish his education, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in economics. He was hosting an audience-participation radio show in Los Angeles, when game show producer Ralph Edwards happened to be listening and liked Barker's voice and style. In 1956, he took over hosting of the game show Truth or Consequences. The show made Barker a star; he was clearly a natural whose charisma and charm connected with contestants and viewers. He would host it for 18 years.

Marriage

In 1937, at the age of 14, Barker met future wife, Dorothy Jo, at an Ella Fitzgerald concert. Dorothy Jo died of lung cancer on October 19, 1981. His mother Matilda Valandra lived with him until her death in 1993.

Animal rights

Barker is an outspoken member of the animal rights movement, and is known for ending each episode of his game show The Price is Right by saying: "Help control the pet population, have your pet spayed or neutered." This practice would later be followed by now-deceased game show hosts Jack Barry and Bert Convy. When the United States Postal Service created a series of postage stamps on this subject, one of the shows had a small segment whose only purpose was to publicize them. CBS goes out of its way to offer prizes that do not violate Barker's animal rights views (though for the first ten years shows did feature fur coats as prizes, and Barker has since prohibited the airing of such past episodes that featured fur coats as prizes).

Game show career

Truth Or Consequences

Barker started hosting on December 31, 1956. The idea was to mix the original quiz element of game shows with wacky stunts. On the show, people had to answer a trivia question correctly (usually an off-the-wall question that no one would be able to answer correctly) before "Beulah the Buzzer" was sounded. If the contestant could not complete the "Truth" portion, there would be "Consequences," usually a zany and embarrassing stunt.

In many broadcasts, the stunts on Truth or Consequences included a popular, but emotional, heart-renching surprise for a contestant, that being the reunion with a long-lost relative or with an enlisted son or daughter returning from military duty overseas, particularly Vietnam.

The Family Game

In 1967, Barker hosted the short-lived game show The Family Game, where he would ask children contestants questions about their family's lives, and the parents had to guess how they answered, in a Newlywed Game-esque fashion.

The Price is Right

On September 4, 1972, Barker began his most famous assignment hosting the CBS revival of The Price Is Right. In the three decades of the CBS version, he has become as synonymous with the show as first host Bill Cullen was with the 1950s–1960s original.

In 2002, The Price is Right celebrated 30 consecutive years on the air. It is the longest running game show of all time in North America, and is also the longest running five-day-a-week daytime entertainment program (and only The Tonight Show's 50 years on the air has surpassed it in terms of overall five-day-a-week American entertainment television programming).

That same year, on March 1st the 6000th episode of The Price is Right hit the air. On this episode, the daytime winnings record (which had been $88,865 since 1992), was broken by a woman named Amy Rempel. She won $97,130.

Barker has recently had success with a prime time version of The Price is Right. This stemmed from the incredibly high ratings for the 30th anniversary show in January 2002. Since then, the prime time specials have returned in spurts for sweeps weeks and on occasion when CBS' turn in the rotation occurs for the Daytime Emmy Awards, including the post-September 11 terrorist attack themed episodes honoring the different branches of the U.S. armed forces (Army, Navy, Coast Guard, etc.) and public safety officers, and later special occasions. Coincidentally, the first of the specials based on the armed forces to air was the Navy, which was Barker's own branch of the military, and both CBS and RTL showed photos from Barker's own time in the Navy.

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