Rise to Fame
Truth or Consequences was the warm-up act. Barker had been hosting that show for sixteen years when The Price Is Right came along in 1972, and ran both at the same time for three years. The Price Is Right lasted 35 years under him, making it the longest-running daytime game show in history. He won 14 Emmys hosting it. The sign-off he added in 1982, urging viewers to spay and neuter their pets, became the most-repeated line he ever delivered on television.
In the Spotlight
The animal activism wasn't a hobby. He donated more than $25 million through his DJ&T Foundation to pet sterilization programs and gave $5 million to Sea Shepherd, which named their 1,200-ton anti-whaling vessel after him. At the 1987 Miss USA pageant he threatened to bail unless real fur coats were pulled from the show, and organizers complied. He resigned as pageant host for good the following year when they broke that promise. The professional record got messy: Dian Parkinson sued him in 1994 for sexual harassment, later dropping the case; Holly Hallstrom won a settlement after claiming she was fired for refusing to back him during the Parkinson case. Sea Shepherd got a ship. The Price Is Right set got something more complicated.
Side Notes
Barker grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and held citizenship in the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. He served in the Navy during World War II before ending up behind a game show podium. His wife Dorothy Jo died in 1981 after 36 years together, and he named his spay-and-neuter foundation DJ&T after her and his mother. Whatever the TV persona projected, the actual biography was considerably more weather-beaten.
Final Chapter
CBS aired The Price Is Right: A Tribute to Bob Barker on August 31, 2023, with Drew Carey hosting. Carey, who had taken over the show in 2007, called it a very sad day for The Price Is Right family. PETA issued a statement calling him 'a national animal rights treasure.' Adam Sandler, his Happy Gilmore co-star from the golf fight scene, also posted tributes on social media.