Watch Chuck Barris Videos

Charles Hirsch "Chuck" Barris (born June 3, 1929) is an American game show producer, film director and presenter best known for hosting The Gong Show and creating The Dating Game. Barris, a survivor of lung cancer, is also an author and claims to have worked for the CIA. Barris was born in Oakland, New Jersey to a Jewish family. He attended Drexel University where he was a columnist at the student newspaper The Triangle. He graduated in 1953. Barris got his start in television as a page and later staffer at NBC in New York City, and eventually worked backstage at the TV music show American... MORE

Charles Hirsch "Chuck" Barris (born June 3, 1929) is an American game show producer, film director and presenter best known for hosting The Gong Show and creating The Dating Game. Barris, a survivor of lung cancer, is also an author and claims to have worked for the CIA. Barris was born in Oakland, New Jersey to a Jewish family. He attended Drexel University where he was a columnist at the student newspaper The Triangle. He graduated in 1953. Barris got his start in television as a page and later staffer at NBC in New York City, and eventually worked backstage at the TV music show American Bandstand, originally as a standards-and-practices person for ABC. Barris soon became a music industry figure. He produced pop music on records and TV, but his most successful venture was writing "Palisades Park". Recorded by Freddy Cannon, it peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 12 March 1962, the biggest hit of Cannon's career. Barris also co-wrote or wrote some of the music that appeared on his game shows. Barris was promoted to the daytime programming division at ABC in Los Angeles and was put in charge of deciding which game shows ABC would air. Barris told his bosses that the LESS