By Megan Basham
Bob Barker, the beloved host of “The Price Is Right” for 35 years, died Saturday at the age of 99.
Barker died at his Los Angeles home, his publicist Roger Neal told ABC News. He died of natural causes, TMZ reported.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce that the World’s Greatest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker has left us,” Neal said in a statement.
Over the course of his decades-long career, the game show host collected 19 Emmys, more than any other performer. He retired in 2007 after 50 years in show business, and in 2017 was inducted into The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Hall of Fame.
“Bob brought a lot of much-needed class and humor to the genre,” Jerry Katzman, former vice chair of the William Morris Agency and adjunct faculty member in the film and television department at UCLA, once said of Barker. “I don’t think we’ll ever see that again.”
Robert William Barker was born in Darrington, Washington, a small town just outside of Seattle. His father, a powerline foreman, died in a work-related fall, when he was nine years old, after which he and his mother moved to the Midwest, where he stayed throughout high school.
He attended Drury University on a basketball scholarship, but put his studies on hold to become a Navy fighter pilot. While on leave, Barker married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Jo Gideon, and after returning, completed his degree in economics.