Bob Barker

American game show host and TV personality, Barker hosted The Price is Right for over three decades; it is the longest-running game show in American TV history. He won 15 Emmy awards for his work as TV personality and producer as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award in daytime TV.

Barker spent his early years on a native American reservation where his mother was a schoolteacher. His father died when he was six in 1930; his mother remarried when he was 12 and the family moved to Missouri. With a basketball scholarship, he attended Drury College in Missouri but joined the Navy, becoming a fighter pilot, before he completed his studies. When the war ended and he was discharged from the Navy, Barker returned to Drury College. He landed a job with a radio station to help pay for school and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's in economics.

After graduation, he became a host of a Palm Beach, Florida radio show, soon after moving to Los Angeles to do another show. But no sooner had he arrived than he had his own TV show, The Bob Barker Show. On 21 December 1956, Barker took over Truth or Consequences where his career took off. He began hosting The Price is Right in 1972.

Handsome, likeable, impeccably dressed, always smiling and always tanned, Barker was a gracious host who effortlessly encouraged and received audience participation. Not just a pretty face, he loved to travel, was a Civil War buff, learned Karate, and was an animal-rights activist. In 1987 and in 1988 he refused to continue hosting beauty pageants unless furs were eliminated from the pageantry. Barker established foundations for spaying dogs and cats and for animal rights activism.

His wife of many years died of lung cancer on 19 October 1981. He never remarried. In 1994 he was accused of sexual harassment by Dian Parkinson, a model who appeared on the show for 18 years. She alleged that he required sex from her in order for her to keep her job.