Bob Barker: a host who has always had game

NONFICTION

For more than 50 years, Bob Barker was perhaps television's smoothest, most genial and most natural presence. As host of "The Price Is Right," he turned a game show into an American phenomenon that made "Come on down!" a lasting catchphrase.

Now 85 and retired, Barker writes about his life in "Priceless Memories," and the result is a book as agreeable as its author.

Born in Darrington, Wash., in 1923 to a power-line foreman and a teacher, Barker spent much of his youth in South Dakota and Missouri after his father died when he was 6. He describes his childhood as idyllic, particularly the time he spent growing up on an Indian reservation in South Dakota (Barker is one-eighth Sioux).

His years at Drury College in Springfield, Mo., were interrupted by his service as a Navy aviator. He married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Jo Gideon, and the two soon headed to Hollywood, where Barker landed a local radio show.

Then, in 1956, he got a call from Ralph "This Is Your Life" Edwards, who hired him as host of "Truth or Consequences," Barker's first audience-participation game show. He took over the hosting duties on "The Price Is Right" in 1972 and stayed with the show until his retirement in 2007.

With wit that may cause you to laugh out loud, Barker describes the fun times -- and the bloopers -- of both shows, the joy that unrehearsed contestants brought and the occasional injuries he suffered from overly excited participants.

One woman, he writes, "lost control after winning, got underneath my chin, and kept jumping up and down. I endured several teeth-jarring uppercuts to my chin -- bam, bam, bam -- before I broke free." But like the rest of "Priceless Memories," Barker relates this painful incident with humor, not rancor.

Barker includes plenty of non-TV material in "Priceless Memories":

• "Growing up in South Dakota nurtured in me a reverence for nature and a love of animals," he writes. That love has stayed with him throughout his life, in his love of pets (and not just cats and dogs) and his work for animal rights, including his longtime sign-off: "This is Bob Barker reminding you to help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered." The anecdotes about his pets are at once touching and hilarious, particularly the ones about Carlos, a roof-climbing German shepherd mix, and Mr. Hubbard, a deaf basset hound.

• He had "years of fun and success" working beauty pageants but couldn't continue "because of the clash between the fur coats and my passion for animal rights." As he writes, "If you really want to impress people with how much money you have, buy a cloth coat and hang bills on it."

• Shortly after arriving in Hollywood, he was referred for a job interview at which he was surprised to be offered a role in a pornographic movie. "Did you take it?" Dorothy Jo asked.

• Of his one movie role, in which he wins a fight with Adam Sandler's character in "Happy Gilmore," he jokingly writes: "Frequently people, particularly young men, ask me if I could beat up Adam Sandler in real life. I say, 'Are you kidding? Adam Sandler couldn't whip Regis Philbin.'"

• He's an avid reader with a deep belief in the importance of education, bred into him by his mother.

Barker is silent about the sexual-harassment and wrongful-termination accusations leveled against him by some of the former models on "The Price Is Right," but in a memoir such as this, that's OK. After all, we don't watch Plinko and hope that all five of the contestant's chips will fall in the zero slot -- we're pulling for him or her to win $50,000. "Priceless Memories" accentuates the positive and mostly eliminates the negative.

Through everything, Barker reiterates how lucky he has been -- with the exception of Dorothy Jo's death in 1981 at age 57 -- and how much fun he has had in life. And now his fans are fortunate to have the breezy reflections of a show-business legend in a book that displays the nice guy behind the nice host.

Filled with anecdotes and affability, "Priceless Memories" will have you reading until bedtime -- but without going over.

Contact Jay Strafford at (804) 649-6698 or .