Bob Barker

Hi I'm Bob Barker (born Robert William Barker on December 12, 1923) I'm best known for hosting The Price Is Right. Born in Darrington, Washington, I grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Rosebud, South Dakota, where my mother was a schoolteacher. In College, I attended Drury College in Springfield, Missouri on a basketball scholarship, earned a degree in economics, then entered the Navy to fight World War II. I hosted an audience-participation radio show in L.A., when game show producer Ralph Edwards happened to be listening and liked my voice and style. In 1956, I took over hosting of the game show Truth or Consequences. The show made me a star; I was clearly a natural whose charisma and charm connected with contestants and viewers. I would host it for 19 years. I was a member of the Epsilon Beta Chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity when I was in college at Drury University. In 1937, at the age of 14, I met my future wife, Dorothy Jo, at an Ella Fitzgerald concert. Dorothy Jo died of lung cancer on October 19, 1981. My mother Matilda Valandra lived with me until her death in 1993.I'm an outspoken member of the animal rights movement, and is known for ending each episode of my 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. I forced CBS to stop offering Porsche cars as prizes after one appearance when he learned they were involved in animal testing. CBS goes out of its way to offer prizes that do not violate my animal rights views (though for the first ten years shows did feature fur coats as prizes, and since prohibited the airing of such past episodes that featured fur coats as prizes).