Bob Barker Net Worth

How much is Bob Barker worth?

About Bob Barker

Mark Goodson and Bill Todman started pitching a revamped version of The Price Is Right with Dennis James as host to stations in early 1972. CBS was interested in the show, but only if Barker were to replace James as the host. Barker was first turned down by CBS for a hosting role on Jack Barry’s The Joker’s Wild, but eventually accepted.

A large portion of Barker’s formative years were spent on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Mission, South Dakota. Barker is recorded as a Sioux tribal member on the United States Indian Census Rolls for the years 1885 through 1940. Byron John Barker’s mother, Matilda (“Tillie”) Valandra (born Matilda Kent Tarleton), was a school teacher, and Barker’s father, Byron John Barker, was a foreman on an electrical high line across Washington. Barker is a quarter Sioux due to his father and a non-Sioux mother.

To further his radio career, he relocated to California in 1950. Bob Barker hosted his own radio program out of Burbank for six years. On December 31, 1956, Barker became the host of Truth or Consequences, a role he held until 1975. Barker took over as host of CBS’s reboot of The Price Is Right on that network’s September 4th, 1972 premiere.

Barker appeared on the game programs Tattletales (1975-1976) alongside his wife Dorothy Jo and Match Game (1976) on a less-than-regular basis (1973–1980). During the first week of Richard Dawson’s indefinite absence from Match Game, Barker took his seat at the table.

He presided over the Pillsbury Bake-Off every year or two in the 1970s (the bake-off occurred every two years starting in 1976). The first presenter to crown a man winner in a certain category, it was him back in 1978.

During the ’70s and ’80s, Barker co-hosted CBS’s broadcasts of the Rose Parade from Pasadena, California. In 1987, Barker asked that the Miss USA pageant no longer award fur as prizes; when the producers refused, Barker resigned as host. Barker gave up the practice of dying his hair and instead embraced its natural gray hue on October 15, 1987, making him a rarity among MCs at the time.

In 1989, Barker and United Activists for Animal Rights publicly accused several media projects and the American Humane Association of animal mistreatment and condoning animal mistreatment, a strategy that resulted in a $10 million suit against him and the UAAR for libel, slander, and invasion of privacy.

After having an affair with Barker for three years while both were working on The Price Is Right, former model Dian Parkinson sued him in 1994 for sexual harassment. Parkinson, who claimed she was extorted by threats of termination, eventually dropped her complaint, saying she was too sick to continue fighting.

Barker established the DJ&T Foundation in 1994, naming it after his late wife and mother. The organization has given millions of dollars to neutering programs for animals and supported shelters and parks for animals around the United States.

In the Adam Sandler film Happy Gilmore from 1996, Barker had a cameo. When Barker and Gilmore get into an argument during a Pro-Am golf tournament they are playing in together, Barker ends up beating Gilmore.

Barker provided Columbia University’s Animal Legal Studies Program with $1 million (about $1.4 million in 2021). Barker announced his retirement from The Price Is Right on October 31, 2006. He left the show in June 2007.

His last taping was on June 6, 2007, and the show aired twice on June 15 of that year. Following the screening of the fight sequence from Happy Gilmore at a CBS prime-time special honoring Barker’s career in 2007, Sandler made a surprise visit on stage to read a poem honoring Barker.

Barker hosted WWE Raw (then titled “The Price is Raw”) on September 7, 2009, in Rosemont, Illinois. Barker’s visit was the best of over 80 guest hosts on the weekly wrestling show, which aired during a time when nearly every episode had a celebrity guest presenter, with varying degrees of success.

Barker gave $1 million (about $1.4 million in 2021) to the University of Virginia Law School to fund research into animal rights in 2009. It’s worth noting that he gave to a number of other prestigious law schools, including Harvard, Georgetown, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, and UCLA. Priceless Memories, Barker’s autobiography, was released on April 6, 2009. Diehl, a former editor of the book review section of the Los Angeles Times, collaborated with Barker on the book.

In 2010, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society revealed that it had used Barker’s donation of $5 million (equal to $6.2 million in 2021) to acquire and outfit a ship specifically for the purpose of interdicting Japanese whaling operations in the Southern Ocean. When it was revealed that the ship existed because it had a hand in pinpointing the whaling grounds in Japan, it was given the moniker MY Bob Barker.

Barker gave PETA $2.5 million (around $3.1 million in 2021 dollars) to help with the cost of renovating a building for its new Los Angeles headquarters in 2010. In 2012, the doors to the structure opened to the public. In order to help out Mike Huckabee with his daily TV talk show, The Huckabee Show, Barker agreed to be a guest co-host on a rotating basis. The first time you saw Barker on TV was on July 29, 2010.

Barker’s most recent cameo was an April Fools’ Day switch where he replaced Drew Carey as the show’s entrance, which happened on April 1, 2015. After taking over hosting duties from Carey for the day’s first one bid and price game, he made an appearance during the showcase. Barker and Sandler reconciled in 2015 for a film shown at Comedy Central’s “Night of Too Many Stars” charity show for autism; the two had a rematch at the hospital before both of them die and go to paradise.

After 50 years in the television business, he announced his retirement as host of The Price Is Right in 2007. From 2009 till 2017, Barker made a few public appearances every now and then after his retirement.