Who Was Bob Barker's Late Wife, Dorothy Jo Gideon?

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Bob Barker's wife Dorothy Jo Gideon was born in February 1924 in Missouri, according to Closer Weekly, and worked as a singing and voice actor. Like her husband, she appeared on game shows, like It's Your Bet and Tattletales in the '70s. In fact, Barker revealed she was the one who persuaded him to get into game shows himself, saying he owes all of his success to her.

"I was working at a radio station. I finally got the opportunity to do an audience participation show ... Dorothy Jo heard it," he told Good Morning America in 2007. "When I got home she said, 'That's what you should do.'"

Gideon was also an animal rights activist who inspired her husband to help animal organizations. "She was ahead of her time," Barker told GMA, revealing she "stopped wearing fur coats ... and became a vegetarian" before it was popular.

Unfortunately, in April 1981, Gideon was diagnosed with lung cancer and died at 57 just six months later. When asked why he never remarried, Barker told GMA he "never had any inclination to. She was my wife." A Radar Online source claimed Barker never fully got over Gideon's death. "She was the love of his life. ... He told me, 'I just felt there should only ever be one Mrs. Bob Barker.'" At age 93, Barker was seen visiting his late wife's grave with flowers, per the New York Daily News.

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