Barker was enrolled member of Rosebud Sioux Tribe

There is a Facebook meme making the rounds of late, featuring a bowl of chicken soup, some soda crackers, and a bottle of ginger ale next to the face of the late game show host, Bob Barker. For two generations this is how most kids watched his long-running CBS game show, The Price Is Right, because they were home sick from school. Barker died last week of natural causes, at his Los Angeles home, four months shy of his 100^th birthday.

Barker was an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and back when he was born in 1923, Indians were not yet US citizens. He was raised near Mission, born with the gift of gab, and like his Lakota ancestors, he had an infectious sense of humor, he could charm a gathering. His mother was a Valandra, and a schoolteacher, but the family eventually relocated to Missouri, where Barker attended high school. He met his future wife, Dorothy Jo Gideon, when he was fifteen years old, at an Ella Fitzgerald concert. They would be married 36 years, until her death of cancer in 1981. They had no children.

Barker’s skill at basketball earned him a scholarship to Drury University. Like most young men of that time, WWII interrupted whatever plans he might have had, and he joined the US Navy Reserve, trained as a fighter pilot, but did not see combat. After the war, he was graduated summa cum laude from Drury with an economics degree. During his college years, Barker first learned the skills that would result in success and celebrity at KTTS-FM radio in Springfield. Then came that critical first step, out into the world to pursue a career in broadcasting. Whether he had any notion of becoming a game show host at that time, what he did become was news editor and announcer for WWPG AM radio in Palm Beach, Florida.

After five years in Florida, Barker decided to relocate to the hub of broadcast opportunity, Los Angeles. It is not known if folks were impressed by his resume, his personality, or his visible skill, perhaps a combination of all three, but Barker soon had his own radio show, The Bob Barker Show, which had a six year run. In 1956, game show producer legend Ralph Edwards heard Barker on the radio and decided to hire Barker to host the TV version of Truth or Consequences.

What wasn’t known at the time was Barker’s ability to connect with a TV audience the way he could a studio audience. In the Age of Radio, just the voice mattered, but like the silent actor Ronald Coleman decades before, the switch to talkies revealed Coleman’s rich voice, and the switch to TV revealed that Barker had an on air presence that resonated across America.

Barker would host Truth or Consequences for 19 years. Three years before Truth or Consequences ended, Mark Goodson and Bill Todman hired Barker to host what would become his signature flagship, and perhaps the most successful game show of all time, The Price Is Right.

After Jo’s death, Barker began a relationship with Nancy Burnet that would last until his death last week, although they were never married. He met Burnet at an animal adoption event. Burnet was an activist for legislation protecting animals, and their shared passion for the plight of animals established a lifetime bond. In 1987 Barker went on a trip to Europe with Burnet and did not dye his hair which was an industry standard. Upon returning to work, Barker stepped onto the set with his gray hair, and like everything else he did, the grey haired version of Barker charmed the audience and the viewers as smoothly as the dark haired version.

Barker is credited with saying: “I’ve always bragged about being part Indian, because they are a people to be proud of. And the Sioux were the greatest warriors of them all.”

But during his long life he made no attempt to cash in on his tribal identity. He was a very private person, except for his tireless efforts on behalf of animal rights.

According to his long time publicist, Roger Neal, Barker wanted no public funeral: “He just felt that should be something very private. So, we’re just following his wishes. He wanted the burial to be private.”

As Barker aged, his relationship with Burnet went from romantic to caretaker.

Neal said: “They’ve been together since 1983; she was in charge of everything for Barker. She took such excellent care of him all these years. Even the last years as he was getting well into his 90s, she really made sure he had the best of everything.”

Despite leading a low key life, Barker was still a celebrity, and there were controversies. His animal rights activism sometimes created friction with his hosting duties. Because the Miss USA pageant refused to remove fur prizes from the contest he stepped down as host. The American Humane Society leveled a $10 million lawsuit against him after he accused them of animal mistreatment and condoning animal mistreatment. He got into a feud with Betty White over the mistreatment of elephants at the Los Angeles zoo. But during his life, Barker donated over $10 million to animal rights causes.

Perhaps the most embarrassing part of Barker’s life were the lawsuits filed against him by models employed by The Price Is Right. In 1994, former model Dian Parkinson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Barker, but the suit was eventually dropped and Barker proven guilty of nothing.

However, a subsequent lawsuit by model Holly Hallstrom alleged she was fired because she gained 14 pounds and that she wouldn’t support an anti-Parkinson narrative. Hallstrom would not let this lawsuit go, and in the end, she was awarded an undisclosed settlement, but not until after she was reduced to sleeping in her car.

Another lawsuit emerged from model Deborah Curling but this one was dismissed by the courts. The only mud that stuck was the Hallstrom lawsuit and it is unclear whether this was Barker or the Price Is Right behind her termination.

The most iconic aspect of Barker’s career, and the scene movie fans will recall for many decades to come, was the 1996 Happy Gilmore scene where Barker fights and defeats Adam Sandler on a golf course. An entire new generation of Barker fans may know nothing else about the movie or his Price Is Right career, but they know and love that scene.

Barker will live on nostalgically where others fade into history. His game shows will be played over and over again, and the same charm that worked during his life, will charm audiences long after his death.

“Barker would sit on the edge of the stage and talk to the audience,” Neal said. “before they left and during the commercial breaks. He really cared about the viewers. When you saw people run on stage and give him a hug or give him a kiss, that was real. That was genuine.”

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com)

  

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