Chuck Barris: Where No Man Has Gonged Before
Chuck Barris, best known as the spirited host of TV’s “The Gong Show” and the brainchild behind “The Dating Game” and “The Newlywed Game,” died Tuesday at the age of 87.
Barris passed away from natural causes in his home in Palisades, New York, and no doubt he’ll be among the top hits in the next 24-hour news cycle. I haven’t seen the headline, “Gonged, But Not Forgotten” yet, but somewhere on the web it’s bound to pop up. Let’s face it: “The Gong Show” became a guilty pleasure when it ran from 1976 to 1980. Critically panned, it boasted lighthearted spunk with Barris at the helm as amateur performers tried to appease three celebrity judges—they just loved to halt those abysmal performances with a bold strike of a big gong.
But Barris was an curious creative bird. I had the opportunity to connect with him during press interviews for the 2002 film “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” directed by George Clooney. The big-screen outing was based on Barris’s 1980 memoirs of the same name, in which he wrote: “My name is Charles Hirsch Barris. I have written pop songs, I have been a television producer. I am responsible for polluting the airwaves with mind-numbing puerile entertainment. In addition, I have murdered thirty-three human beings.”
So, was Chuck Barris really a CIA operative, as the memoir suggests, or was it just confessions of a frivolous mind?
The CIA has repeatedly denied the memoir’s claims.
Barris’s backstory still fascinates me, however. Two decades after the beleaguered TV host thrust himself into a New York City hotel room to begin penning what would be “Confessions,” the fickle industry that once shunned him was welcoming him back with open arms upon “Confessions …” release.
Shunned?
It went down like this: Barris was so bludgeoned by the press when his shows aired—the days between our love of that Farrah Flip—that it ultimately led to an emotional breakdown. He’d gone from paving the way for first-run syndication on television, a hotshot producer who spawned more half-hour television shows at the time, to being looked upon as yesterday’s entertainment leftovers.
Even his memoirs were dismissed—until Clooney caught wind of them. Suddenly, the concept—game show host by day, assassin by night—smacked of something cinematic.
“I believe it’s Chuck’s story,” Clooney mused at the time. “I believe it was important for him to tell it and fun for us because the story is so wild. There is something fascinating about someone of his wealth and fame who would want to say this about himself. Whether it’s true or not, it’s in Chuck’s head.”
But Barris’s mind was always burgeoning with ideas. At one time, his rock song, “Palisades Park” became a gold record, and his other book “You and Me, Babe,” hit the “New York Times” bestseller list. And, let’s be honest: There always something deliciously addictive in hearing “The Newlywed Game” host Chuck Woolery mutter the phrase “make whoppi” after network censors forbade the use of “making love” in the 1970s.
Imagine such a thing happening today.
In between finalizing his next novel, “Bad Grass Never Dies: More Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”, Barris and I connected. Here’s a snippet of our conversation from more than a decade ago.
Greg Archer: George Clooney has said that when he once asked you about the specifics of your story—being a CIA operative. And he said you looked him straight in the eye and said nothing. But he walked away believing this was…
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