Bob Barker, an entertainer known for hosting the popular game show “The Price is Right” for decades, has passed away at age 99.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce that the World’s Greatest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker has left us,” publicist Roger Neal said in a statement Saturday, per NBC News.
Barker was born in Darrington, Washington and he was raised on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Mission, S.D., according to Biography.com. He attended Drury College on a basketball scholarship and left in 1943 to become a fighter pilot in the United States Naval Reserve. World War II ended before he was given an active duty assignment and he eventually graduated from Drury.
His career in entertainment began with a job at a Florida radio station and he moved to California in 1950, where he had his own radio program, “The Bob Barker Show”, for six years. In 1956 he started what would be a long career as a game show host with the “Truth or Consequences” show on TV.
He was still hosting that show when he became the host of “The Price is Right” in 1972 and it was taken off the air two years later. Barker would go on to host “The Price is Right” until his retirement in 2007. Drew Carey took over as host.
According to NBC News, Barker “used his combination of comfort-food charm and deadpan humor to become an American television staple.”
TMZ reported that Barker, also known as an animal rights activist, died peacefully in his Los Angeles home Saturday morning from natural causes. He was predeceased by his wife and high school sweetheart, Dorothy Jo Gideon, who died in 1981.
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