A pub­li­cist says pop­u­lar game show host Bob Bark­er, a house­hold name for a half-cen­tu­ry as host of “Truth or Con­se­quences” and “The Price Is Right,” has died at his home in Los An­ge­les. Bark­er was 99.

Bark­er — al­so a long­time an­i­mal rights ac­tivist — died Sat­ur­day morn­ing, ac­cord­ing to pub­li­cist Roger Neal.

“I am 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,” said Nan­cy Bur­net, his long­time friend and care­tak­er, in a state­ment.

Bark­er re­tired in June 2007, telling his stu­dio au­di­ence: “I thank you, thank you, thank you for invit­ing me in­to your home for more than 50 years.”

Bark­er was work­ing in ra­dio in 1956 when pro­duc­er Ralph Ed­wards in­vit­ed him to au­di­tion as the new host of “Truth or Con­se­quences,” a game show in which au­di­ence mem­bers had to do wacky stunts — the “con­se­quence” — if they failed to an­swer a ques­tion — the “truth,” which was al­ways the sil­ly punch­line to a rid­dle no one was ever meant to fur­nish. (Q: What did one eye say to an­oth­er? A: Just be­tween us, some­thing smells.)

In a 1996 in­ter­view with The As­so­ci­at­ed Press, Bark­er re­called re­ceiv­ing the news that he had been hired: “I know ex­act­ly where I was, I know ex­act­ly how I felt: I hung up the phone and said to my wife, ‘Dorothy Jo, I got it!’”

Bark­er stayed with “Truth or Con­se­quences” for 18 years — in­clud­ing sev­er­al years in a syn­di­cat­ed ver­sion.

Mean­while, he be­gan host­ing a res­ur­rect­ed ver­sion of “The Price Is Right” in 1972. (The orig­i­nal host in the 1950s and ‘60s was Bill Cullen.) It would be­come TV’s longest-run­ning game show and the last on a broad­cast net­work of what in TV’s ear­ly days had num­bered dozens.

“I have grown old in your ser­vice,” the sil­ver-haired, peren­ni­al­ly tanned Bark­er joked on a prime-time tele­vi­sion ret­ro­spec­tive in the mid-’90s.

In all, he taped more than 5,000 shows in his ca­reer. He said he was re­tir­ing be­cause “I’m just reach­ing the age where the con­stant ef­fort to be there and do the show phys­i­cal­ly is a lot for me. … Bet­ter (to leave) a year too soon than a year too late.” Co­me­di­an Drew Carey was cho­sen to re­place him.

Bark­er was back with Carey for one show broad­cast in April 2009. He was there to pro­mote the pub­li­ca­tion of his mem­oir, “Price­less Mem­o­ries,” in which he summed up his joy from host­ing the show as the op­por­tu­ni­ty “to watch peo­ple re­veal them­selves and to watch the ex­cite­ment and hu­mor un­fold.”

He well un­der­stood the at­trac­tion of “The Price Is Right,” in which au­di­ence mem­bers — in­vit­ed to “Come on down!” to the stage — com­pet­ed for prizes by try­ing to guess their re­tail val­ue.

“Every­one can iden­ti­fy with prices, even the pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. View­ers at home be­come in­volved be­cause they all have an opin­ion on the bids,” Bark­er once said. His own ap­peal was clear: Bark­er played it straight — warm, gra­cious and wit­ty — re­fus­ing to mock the game show for­mat or his con­tes­tants.

“I want the con­tes­tants to feel as though they’re guests in my home,” he said in 1996. “Per­haps my feel­ing of re­spect for them comes across to view­ers, and that may be one of the rea­sons why I’ve last­ed.”

As a TV per­son­al­i­ty, Bark­er re­tained a touch of the old school — for in­stance, no wire­less mi­cro­phone for him. Like the mic it­self, the mic cord served him well as a prop, in­sou­ciant­ly flicked and fi­nessed.

His ca­reer longevi­ty, he said, was the re­sult of be­ing con­tent. “I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do this type of show and I dis­cov­ered I en­joyed it … Peo­ple who do some­thing that they thor­ough­ly en­joy and they start­ed do­ing it when they’re very young, I don’t think they want to stop.”

Bark­er al­so spent 20 years as host of the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Uni­verse Pageant. A long­time an­i­mal rights ac­tivist who dai­ly urged his view­ers to “have your pets spayed or neutered” and suc­cess­ful­ly lob­bied to ban fur coats as prizes on “The Price Is Right,” he quit the Miss USA Pageant in 1987 in protest over the pre­sen­ta­tion of fur coats to the win­ners.

In 1997, Bark­er de­clined to be a pre­sen­ter at the Day­time Em­my awards cer­e­mo­ny be­cause he said it snubbed game shows by not air­ing awards in the cat­e­go­ry. He called game shows “the pil­lars of day­time TV.”

He had a mem­o­rable cameo ap­pear­ance on the big screen in 1996, spar­ring with Adam San­dler in the movie “Hap­py Gilmore.” “I did `The Price Is Right’ for 35 years, and they’re ask­ing me how it was to beat up Adam San­dler,” Bark­er lat­er joked.

In 1994, the wid­owed Bark­er was sued for sex­u­al ha­rass­ment by Di­an Parkin­son, a “Price is Right” mod­el for 18 years. Bark­er ad­mit­ted en­gag­ing in “han­ky panky” with Parkin­son from 1989-91 but said she ini­ti­at­ed the re­la­tion­ship. Parkin­son dropped the law­suit in 1995, say­ing it was hurt­ing her health.

Bark­er be­came em­broiled in a dis­pute with an­oth­er for­mer “Price Is Right” mod­el, Hol­ly Hall­strom, who claimed she was fired in 1995 be­cause the show’s pro­duc­ers be­lieved she was fat. Bark­er de­nied the al­le­ga­tions.

Nei­ther up­roar af­fect­ed his good­will from the au­di­ence.

Born in Dar­ring­ton, Wash­ing­ton, in 1923, Bark­er spent part of his child­hood on the Rose­bud In­di­an Reser­va­tion in South Dako­ta, where his wid­owed moth­er had tak­en a teach­ing job. The fam­i­ly lat­er moved to Spring­field, Mo., where he at­tend­ed high school. He served in the Navy in World War II.

He mar­ried Dorothy Jo Gideon, his high school sweet­heart; she died in 1981 af­ter 37 years of mar­riage. They had no chil­dren.

Bark­er was giv­en a life­time achieve­ment award at the 26th an­nu­al Day­time Em­my Awards in 1999. He closed his ac­cep­tance re­marks with the sig­noff: “Have your pets spayed or neutered.”