Creator
Jun 2, 1929
Palisades, New York, USA
Chuck Barris
Creator
Biography
Charles Hirsch Barris (June 3, 1929 – March 21, 2017) was an American game show creator, producer, and host. He was best known for hosting The Gong Show and creating The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. He was also a songwriter who wrote "Palisades Park", recorded by Freddy Cannon and also recorded by Ramones. He also wrote or co-wrote some of the music that appeared on his game shows. He wrote an autobiography titled Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was made into the film of the same title starring Sam Rockwell and directed by George Clooney. He formed his production company, Chuck Barris Productions, on June 14, 1965. His first success came in 1965 with The Dating Game, which aired on ABC. The show ran until 1980 and was twice revived, later in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1966, he began The Newlywed Game, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir, also for ABC. The show is the longest lasting of any developed by his company, broadcast until 1985, for a total of 19 full years on both "first run" network TV and syndication. He became a public figure in 1976 when he produced and served as the host of the talent show spoof The Gong Show, which he packaged in partnership with TV producer Chris Bearde. It ran only two seasons on NBC (1976–78) and four in syndication (1976–80). It has had four subsequent revivals, one under Barris' title (with Don Bleu) in 1988–1989, one on The Game Show Network in 2000 called Extreme Gong and another 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, he starred in and directed The Gong Show Movie. The film was a major failure at the box office. In 1984, he wrote an autobiography, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. In the book, he states that he 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 ever worked for them in any capacity. After the release of the movie, CIA spokesman Paul Nowack said Barris' assertions that he worked for the CIA “[are] ridiculous. It's absolutely not true". In an interview on NBC's Today Show in 1984, Barris admitted to having made the story up. His 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. He 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.
Feature Films (5)
Television made him famous, but his biggest hits happened off screen. Television producer by day, CIA assassin by night, Chuck Barris was recruited by the CIA at the height of his TV career and trained to become a covert operative. Or so Barris said.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
The Chuck Barris Story: My Life on the Edge is a special documentary about the creator of The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game and creator and host of The Gong Show Chuck Barris. Chronicling the tragedies of his life including harsh criticisms from the press and his peers, a number of failed marriages, working for the C.I.A and the loss of his daughter due to a drug overdose.
The Chuck Barris Story: My Life On The Edge
Hugo Pool is a quirky tale of a Los Angeles pool cleaner who falls in love with a young man dying of Lou Gerhig's Disease.
Hugo Pool
The incredible story of Chop Chop Chang, a world famous circus chimpanzee who is secretly trained by the CIA into a deadly assassin.
Chop Chop Chang: Operation C.H.I.M.P
Television & Series (5)
Stepping into the late-late slot vacated by David Letterman, Conan O'Brien stars in a show that far outdoes its competition in sheer strangeness. Along with the celebrity interviews and musical numbers typical of late-night talk shows, this program make frequent use of odd walk-on characters and frequent "visits" from celebrity guests.
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
The Gong Show is an amateur talent contest franchised by Sony Pictures Television to many countries. It was broadcast on NBC's daytime schedule from June 14, 1976 through July 21, 1978, and in first-run syndication from 1976 to 1980 and 1988 to 1989. The show was produced by Chuck Barris, who also served as host for the NBC run and from 1977 to 1980 in syndication. The show is best remembered for its absurdist humor and style, often awarding participants ridiculous and worthless prizes.
The Gong Show
David Letterman uses mature humor to appeal to his audience in this weeknight series, which gets its music from a house band led by Paul Shaffer. Among the show's most-famous segments are the Top Ten List and Stupid Pet Tricks, the latter of which subsequently led to an additional recurring segment called Stupid Human Tricks.