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Saunders: Barker faces life after 'Price'Date: 25.01.2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team United States
Bob Barker strolled onto the hotel stage for a recent interview with TV critics, accompanied by polite applause from CBS employees. TV critics seldom (if ever) applaud an interview subject.
"On The Price is Right, I get a lot more applause than that," said a grinning Barker.
Louder applause followed.
"That's better. On The Price is Right I get a standing ovation."
Laughter filled the room.
"Can one of you stand up?" Barker asked. "There he is. That man gets the refrigerator."
The white-haired, ramrod-straight Barker was proving that his humor and show-biz acumen was still priced right for the competitive TV game show market. So why, after 50 years on television - 35 of them hosting the highest-rated daytime game show in TV history - is Barker stepping down in June?
"CBS has mentioned I'm retiring, which indeed I am," Barker said. "And the question that I'm hearing most often is why did I choose to retire just now?
"Well, last December I became 83 years young and I want to retire while I'm young and healthy."
Asked what he was going to do in retirement, Barker said: "Perhaps I'm missing something. I thought that after you retired you didn't have to do anything.
"However, I do have a plan. I'm going into bodybuilding and eventually become governor of California."
Briefly turning serious, Barker outlined his plans to become even more active in his DJ&T Foundation, designed to control the dog and cat population. The foundation was named in honor of Barker's late wife, Dorothy Jo, and his mother, Tally.
"This is an appropriate time for me to step down," Barker said. "Being on TV for 50 years is a long time.
"Yes, I expect to miss it. We're way up there in the ratings, right on top. And we have people lined up daily at CBS Television City, waiting to get into the tapings. Some even sleep on the sidewalk overnight. I want to go out on top."
Featuring its familiar "Come on down" signature call, The Price is Right has been named "the best game show in television history" by TV Guide. Its entertaining "greed is good" format allows excited contestants to bid on a variety of things, including expensive vacations and new automobiles.
"We're an old-fashioned show," Barker said. "Sure, it's a game show, but I always have fun with contestants. What you see is what you get. While the show is taped, it's actually live. We don't edit anything."
Barker's successful career has been tinged with controversy. In 1988, as longtime host of the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, Barker tangled with executives over the use of fur coats in contestants' prize packages. Ratings declined in both pageants after he left the hosting jobs.
Accused of sexual harassment by several female show employees in the '90s, lawsuits were settled out of court. Barker contends executives who own the show wanted the settlement.
"I didn't choose to settle any of them out of court because the lawsuits were frivolous, based on distortions, exaggerations or outright falsehoods. But it's good company business to settle when you can."
Raised on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where his widowed mother taught school, Barker served as a Navy pilot during World War II before graduating from Drury College in Springfield, Mo. He worked in radio there and in Florida before moving to Los Angeles, where Ralph Edwards hired him in 1956 to host TV's Truth or Consequences, a job he held for more than 16 years.
"Ralph heard me on his car radio, took me to lunch and the deal was signed," Barker recalled.
In 1972 Barker took over the completely new version of The Price is Right, which initially had been hosted by the late Bill Cullen.
Barker's final appearances will be in widely promoted shows in May and June. But his imprint on the series will remain. The studio where The Price is Right is taped was renamed the Bob Barker Studio in 1998.
In 2003, a 12-by-16-foot mural of Barker in front of the Big Wheel, one of the program's most recognizable props, was unveiled.
Barker's replacement has not been named.
"I'll bet you that at age 95, Art Linkletter could do this show as well as anybody they'd find - for one day. But he'd be tired after that."
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