Longtime ‘Price Is Right’ host Bob Barker dies at 99

Game show host Bob Barker has died at the age of 99.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce that the World’s Greatest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker has left us,” publicist Roger Neal said in a statement.

Barker, whose career spanned more than eight decades, was best known as the longtime host of The Price Is Right on CBS. In 2002, he broke Johnny Carson’s record for continuous performances on the same network TV show.

Barker began hosting The Price is Right when Richard Nixon was in the White House. He remained with the show for 35 years before retiring in 2007. Even at the end of his career, the then-80-something host was still taping five shows a week.

At a press conference held on his last day, Barker said as much as he looked forward to retirement, getting ready to tape that final show wasn’t easy.

“I really had myself worked up in an emotional state,” he said, “and I thought, I’ve got to go over there and do this show — straighten yourself out, Barker!”

Born in 1923, Barker grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where his mother was a schoolteacher. He never thought his future career would require cake makeup, the glare of camera lights or games like Plinko and Cliffhanger.

“I wanted to pitch for the Saint Louis Cardinals. That was my dream,” Barker said. “And the only thing that prevented it was a total lack of talent.”

Instead, Barker pitched in with the World War II effort. He served as a Navy fighter pilot, although he never saw combat. After the war, he returned to finish college and took a job hosting a radio show in Los Angeles. That eventually launched his career, and his next job was hosting TV’s Truth or…