Marsha Nicholas stood before famed comedian Drew Carey on the set of The Price is Right.
She was tasked with guessing the price of a set of designer handbags and products by Coach. If her guess was the closest among the four contestants, she’d win the entire collection.
Nicholas drew a deep breath as the screaming of the audience rose to a roar amid the phantasmagoria of brights lights and colors in the Glendale, California, TV studio on July 23.
She calmly spoke her estimate: $1,801. The actual retail price was $2,164 but Nicholas won –by a dollar. The next closest guess was $1,800.
After the show aired Oct. 21 on CBS, Nicholas’ friends and family told her they knew she’d win that challenge because of her penchant for fashion and her vast collection of similar items.
She also won a brand-new refrigerator and photo booth while coming full circle by stepping through the TV screen and onto a show the 58-year-old Carlsbad native has watched obsessively since she was 5 years old.
To appear on The Price is Right, Nicholas and her husband Joe “Joker” Nicholas, 63, signed up as two of 300 attendees for an episode of the hour-long show, which is recorded with a live studio audience and aired at a later date. She made it through a long pre-show evaluation process but didn’t know she was chosen as a contestant until the moment her name was called out during the taping.
Nicholas made sure to thank her parents Robert and Sharron Valenzuela – the episode was filmed the day after Robert’s 82nd birthday – along with her grandkids and her scrapbooking group.
Amid the excitement, Nicholas confessed, she forgot to give a shout-out to her son Blaine, 36, and her daughter Brittnie, 32.
Nicholas held a pair of watch parties at her home Oct. 21 – one when the episode aired mid-morning and another later that day – and the Carlsbad Current-Argus caught up with her afterward to talk about the experience of being on her favorite TV show.
What was the process of being chosen?
“It was a five-hour ordeal. You go through all these different steps. I felt like they were watching me the whole time and they wanted people who were upbeat and at a ‘10.’ Toward the end, we went into this room and the producer goes down and asks each person questions.
“I showed him my shirt because it said, ‘I’m spayed,’ and on the back ‘He’s neutered.’ Then, on my husband’s it said, ‘I’m neutered; she’s spayed.’ When Bob Barker was the host years ago (1972 to 2007), that was his saying: ‘Have your pets spayed and neutered.’ He was a big animal lover and that was his cause.
“I think they could tell that I was sincere, and I was just really passionate about it. And that was my dream. It was on my bucket list.”
What were your emotions during the game?
“My adrenaline was so high. Everybody’s was. You’re on like a total high that whole time. And it’s so loud and so much is going on. I was like in a dream. They tell you that they want you to jump around. They want you to get on each other’s back. They want you to do cartwheels. They want you to just be real, real excited.
“I just had a feeling that I was going to be called. I was just so happy. I was just so emotional.”
How did you keep the result a secret?
“I could say that I went to the show, and I could even show pictures that I was there. But I could not tell anybody that I was a contestant. And I sure couldn’t tell them that I had won. I stuck with it because they said if they find out that it leaked out or you said something, then your prizes could be voided. You don’t get your prizes until after the show airs.”
How did your family react?
“I had family fly in from out of town to go to the watch party. Some of them made shirts.
“I’m very lucky. I’m very blessed. I have such an amazing support system with my friends and family. I just love my family, and I love my friends. I try to be there for them and do things for them, and they’re good to me, too.”
Managing Editor Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, or @AdrianHedden on the social media platform X.
