Bob Barker, legendary ‘Price is Right’ host, dead at 99

nypost.com:

said: “I think that it would be nice if people remembered me as a guy who loved all living things and did as much as he could to make ours a better world for animals — and also did quite a few television shows.”Barker famously signed off each episode with, “This is Bob Barker reminding you to help control the pet population, have your pets spayed or neutered,” marking one of the first high-profile campaigns to control the over-population of animals in America.His close friend Nancy Burnet, the co-executor of his estate who has overseen the star’s care for many years, told The Post she’s “so proud of the trailblazing work Barker and I did together to expose the cruelty to animals in the entertainment industry and including working to improve the plight of abused and exploited animals in the United States and internationally.

We were great friends over these 40 years, he will be missed.”Born Robert William Barker in Darrington, Washington, on Dec. 12, 1923, Barker spent most of his childhood on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Mission, South Dakota.

He was a member of the Sioux tribe. “I’ve always bragged about being part Indian, because they are a people to be proud of — and the Sioux were the greatest warriors of them all,” Barker said in 1962.“They’ve been called the greatest light cavalry in the history of man.

And I have never been on a horse without falling off.”Barker attended Drury University on a basketball scholarship until he left to join the Navy Reserve in 1943 during World War II to train as a fighter pilot but never served on active duty.Barker married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Jo Gideon, in 1945.