LEGENDARY game show host Tony Barber has opened up about the time a contestant died on set.
The 76-year-old is best known for hosting Sale of the Century, but the unfortunate incident took place on Channel Seven’s Great Temptation which he hosted in the 1970s.
“No one was very sure at first because she’d actually won the game,” explained Barber on Today Extra this morning.
“I had said, ‘Congratulations Valerie, you’ve won!’ and she slopped. There was a bit of confusion. We cleared the studio and doctors were called.”
Barber headed back to his dressing room where he later received an update from the floor manager.
“I said, ‘How is she? She seems to have passed out.’ And he said, ‘Tony, she’s passed on.’ It was awful and very upsetting for everybody there.
“But you know what television people are like,” joked Barber, “someone was heard to remark, ‘I suppose we’ll have to do this episode again!’”
The Gold Logie winner also reminisced about a cunning contestant on the Sale of the Century, much to the delight of Today Extra hosts Sonia Kruger and David Campbell.
“We had a contestant come on the show, win, and represent herself a few months later in a different coloured wig,” he said.
“Just before we went through to the major prizes, I said, ‘All through the show I’ve had this feeling that we’ve met before’. That alerted the production team who went back through (the records) and sure enough, there she was.
“We had to do the whole week of shows again!”
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