Priceless Memories - Bob Barker [1]
By late 1956, Dorothy Jo and I had a small advertising agency on the Sunset Strip from which we serviced advertisers for The Bob Barker Show. And when I say “small,” I really mean small. Dorothy Jo and I were it, which meant that when I was out meeting with a client, she was the only one in the office.
“Ralph Edwards called you,” she said casually as I walked in the door.
This was nothing to be casual about. “You mean the famous Ralph Edwards?” I asked.
“I guess so,” Dorothy Jo replied. “They said ‘Ralph Edwards Productions.’ ”
I started getting excited. “What did he want?” I asked.
“The lady who called said he wants to talk to you.”
“Give me that number!”
I sat down immediately and dialed the number.
Ralph came on the line quickly. He said, “I’m calling you because I have a show called Truth or Consequences that’s going back on TV as a daytime program. I’d like to talk with you about the possibility of you hosting it.”
I could hardly believe my ears, but I managed to say, “Yes, sir.”
“I was wondering when it would be convenient for you to see me,” Ralph said.
I knew that Ralph Edwards Productions was located on Hollywood Boulevard at the corner of Cherokee. I said, “I’ll be right over. I can be in your office in fifteen minutes.” Perhaps a bit too eager, I started to get up and head for the door—even before I hung up the phone. The cord pulled me up short.
With a smile in his voice, Ralph assured me that it wouldn’t be necessary to be there in fifteen minutes. “Bob,” he said, “how about tomorrow or the next day?”
I promptly said, “Let’s make it tomorrow.”
Ralph chuckled as we set up the time for our meeting.
Ralph Edwards Productions had what looked to me like a complete floor, offices in every direction. I told a young lady at a desk near the elevator that I was Bob Barker and that I had an appointment with Mr. Edwards. She asked me, “Ralph or Paul Edwards?”
“Ralph Edwards,” I answered.
She picked up a phone, spoke softly for a moment, and said, “Mr. Edwards is expecting you, Mr. Barker. His office is at the end of this hall.” She gestured down a long hall.
As I walked down the hall, it seemed as if there were one, two, or sometimes three people busily working away in offices on both sides of the hall.
I thought, “This is one busy place.” In the years to come, I learned how right I was.
When I reached Ralph’s office, the door was standing open and he was seated at his desk, writing. As I came through the door, he quickly rose and stepped around his huge desk, extending his hand. He said, “Young man, I like the way you do your radio show.” As we shook hands, he closed his office door behind me, indicated a chair for me near his desk, and sat down in his own chair.
Of course, Ralph’s opening remark that he liked my work on radio did wonders to put me at ease, which was probably exactly what it was intended to do.
Ralph looked even younger—he was forty-two—than he had looked when Dorothy Jo and I had attended his show.
He was wearing a light brown, perfectly fitted single-breasted suit; a white shirt; and a dark brown and yellow tie. I thought he looked every inch the television star and producer that, indeed, he was. His office was spacious and beautifully furnished in brown and beige.
It was just the two of us as Ralph and I sat and talked. He asked some questions about my background and about my experience doing audience participation shows. Apparently, my years of interviewing regular folks in the Edison Electric Living Centers struck him as good preparation for Truth or Consequences.
“What did you do before you came to California?” Ralph asked. I told him how I had gotten my start at KTTS in Springfield, Missouri, while I was in college.
“That’s exactly how I started in radio when I was at the University of California at Berkeley,” Ralph said, and I got the impression that he was pleased we