Chuck Barris

Charles Hirsch Barris (June 3, 1929 – March 21, 2017) was an American game show creator, producer, and host. He is best known for hosting *The Gong Show* and for creating *The Dating Game* and *The Newlywed Game*. Barris was also a songwriter who wrote "Palisades Park," recorded by Freddy Cannon and later by Ramones. He wrote or co-wrote some of the music featured on his game shows. He authored an autobiography titled *Confessions of a Dangerous Mind*, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Sam Rockwell and directed by George Clooney.

Barris founded his production company, Chuck Barris Productions, on June 14, 1965. His first major success came in 1965 with *The Dating Game*, which aired on ABC. The show ran until 1980 and was later revived in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1966, he launched *The Newlywed Game*, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir, also for ABC. The show became the longest-running of any developed by his company, broadcasting until 1985 for a total of 19 full years on both first-run network TV and syndication.

Barris became a public figure in 1976 when he produced and hosted the talent show parody *The Gong Show*, which he developed in partnership with TV producer Chris Bearde. The show ran for two seasons on NBC (1976–78) and four in syndication (1976–80). It has had four subsequent revivals, including one under Barris' title (with Don Bleu) in 1988–89, another on The Game Show Network in 2000 called *Extreme Gong*, and a third with current format owner Sony Pictures Television (with Dave Attell) in 2008. A fourth version, produced by Will Arnett and hosted by fictional British celebrity "Tommy Maitland" (Mike Myers), aired on ABC in 2017.

In 1980, Barris starred in and directed *The Gong Show Movie*. The film was a major box office failure.

In 1984, he published an autobiography titled *Confessions of a Dangerous Mind*. In the book, he claimed to have worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an assassin in the 1960s and 1970s in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. A 2002 feature film version depicts Barris killing 33 people. He wrote a sequel to the autobiography in 2004 called *Bad Grass Never Dies*. The CIA denied Barris had ever worked for them in any capacity. After the film's release, CIA spokesman Paul Nowack stated that Barris' claims were "ridiculous. It's absolutely not true." In an interview on NBC's *Today Show* in 1984, Barris admitted to having fabricated the story.

Barris' first wife was Lyn Levy, the niece of one of the founders of CBS. Their marriage lasted from 1957 to 1976, ending in divorce. They had a daughter, Della, who frequently appeared on *The Gong Show*, usually introducing her father. Della died of an alcohol and cocaine overdose in 1998 at the age of 36. At the time of her death, she was HIV positive. Barris published *Della: A Memoir of My Daughter* in 2010 about the death of his only child and her struggle with drug addiction.

In 1980, he married Robin Altman, 23 years his junior, and they divorced in 1999. The following year, he married Mary Clagett. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in the 1990s. After undergoing surgery to remove part of his lung, he contracted an infection and spent a month in intensive care. He died on March 21, 2017, of natural causes at the age of 87 at home in Palisades, NY, where he lived with his wife, Mary.