Dian Parkinson Biography

For almost two decades, she was one of “Barker’s Beauties” on the long-running game show The Price is Right. The blonde, blue-eyed Southern beauty also has several acting and modeling credits.

Born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on November 30, 1944, Dian Parkinson first entered the spotlight as a beauty pageant contestant. She won the title of Miss District of Columbia USA in 1965, and subsequently finished as fourth runner up when she advanced later that year to the Miss USA pageant. Although she didn’t finish in the top spot, she went on to compete in the Miss World contest, placing second to winner Lesley Langley of the UK.

In 1975, she joined the modeling cast of the show The Price is Right, hosted by Bob Barker. She would remain there for an amazing eighteen years, leaving in 1993. Parkinson’s length of time on the show is second only to Janice Pennington, who holds the record for the longest-serving Price is Right model at twenty-eight years. Holly Hallstrom also remained on the show for eighteen years. 

After her final appearance in 1993, a darker side of Dian’s life on the game show set quickly emerged. Tabloids reported that Parkinson and fellow beauty Janice Pennington had a rocky working relationship, and that a fight between the two was the cause of Dian’s departure. Production staff confirmed that the pair did not get along, and they were seldom featured together by the 1990s.

In 1994, however, Dian revealed the real reason for leaving when she launched a sexual harassment lawsuit against the show’s host. She alleged that Barker, with whom Dian had had a three year affair, sexually harassed her during the late 1980s. For undisclosed reasons, she dropped the lawsuit in 1995. Other Price is Right models have made similar claims against Barker, and African America model Claudia Jordon alleged she was a victim of racism on the set.  

While working as a model on the game show, Dian also dabbled in the world of acting, appearing in four episodes of the 1970s series Vegas. She also appeared on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and was a panelist on the game show The New Hollywood Squares.

As a sexy adult model, Dian appeared on the cover of men’s magazine Playboy, founded by the original ladies’ man Hugh Hefner. She earned the coveted cover girl spot twice: once in December of 1991 and again in May of 1993.

After leaving the show, public interest in the beauty’s life persisted, resulting in several television appearances. In 1993, the same year she left The Price is Right, she appeared on David Letterman’s late night talk show four times. The animated series Space Ghost Coast to Coast included Parkinson in two of its episodes. She appeared as herself in the 1996 documentary Sex Symbol Dynasty: Woman Behind the Dynasty, which also examined the lives of adult models Monique Gabrielle, Linnea Quigley, Rhonda Shear, and Julie Strain.

Now in her sixties, Parkinson is taking some well-deserved time for herself and staying out of the spotlight. People throughout the world will remember her not only as one of Barker’s Beauty’s, but also as one of the premier sex symbols of her era.

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