Bob Barker

Bob Barker was an American television host best known for presenting The Price Is Right on CBS for 35 years, from 1972 to 2007. He was born Robert William Barker on December 12, 1923, in Darrington, Washington, and grew up partly on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where his mother was a teacher; he was an enrolled member of the Sioux tribe through his Rosebud heritage. He served as a United States Navy fighter pilot during World War II and graduated from Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, in 1947.

He worked in radio in the late 1940s and 1950s before being hired by producer Ralph Edwards to host the daytime television game show Truth or Consequences, which he presented from 1956 to 1975.

On September 4, 1972, he began hosting CBS's revived The Price Is Right. Over 6,586 episodes he became one of the most-recognised faces of American daytime television, opening each show with the call "Come on down!" through announcer Johnny Olson and later Rich Fields. He hosted 19 Miss USA pageants and 21 Miss Universe pageants between 1967 and 1987, resigning when organisers refused to remove fur prizes.

He was a vocal advocate for animal welfare. From the late 1980s he closed every episode of The Price Is Right with the line "Help control the pet population — have your pets spayed or neutered." His DJ&T Foundation, named for his late wife Dorothy Jo and his mother, funded animal-rescue and sterilisation programs across the United States. He won 19 Daytime Emmy Awards and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2004. He died on August 26, 2023, at age 99 at his home in Los Angeles.

His given name Bob is a short form of Robert, from the Germanic Hrodebert meaning "bright fame," combining hrod ("fame") and beraht ("bright"). The rhyming pet form Bob, alongside Rob and Robin, became established in medieval England and remains one of the most familiar English nicknames.