Confessions of a Dangerous Mind [Was Chuck Barris of TV's Gong Show also a CIA assassin???]

From The Critics:

Publishers Weekly

Originally published in 1982 but out-of-print for years, '70s television icon Barris's forgotten autobiography is being reissued to coincide with the December release of a major film adaptation. After two decades of relative obscurity, Barris's memoir may finally find an eager audience. Readers will probably best remember Barris as the creator and host of The Gong Show, but his resume also includes such classic shows as The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, as well as a hit song, "Palisades Park," and a New York Times bestselling book, You and Me Babe (1970).

What will shock readers, however, is Barris's claim that, throughout his successful TV career, he was leading a double life as a decorated CIA assassin. While supposedly "scouting locations" to send his winning game show contestants, Barris was actually traveling to exotic locales to knock off America's Cold War foes.

Or so he'd have readers believe. While far-fetched, the tension-filled scenes of Barris's supposed CIA activities provide an ingenious counterbalance to the story of his meandering personal life, the snarling critics who attacked Barris for dragging television into the gutter and hilarious recollections of how wholesome contestants would become inexplicably filthy once on the set of The Dating Game.

Even though Barris's reputation as a wacky TV show host doomed this literary venture when it was originally published, it is in fact a remarkably well-crafted and entertaining book, both unflinchingly personal and at times laugh-out-loud funny. Twenty years later, it reads like a classic. (Nov.)

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Thank you for your response on this thread.

I am wondering now about the truthfulness of his CIA claim, mostly because of these two articles, below, especially the long autobiographical article from Salon.

Chuck Barris just seems to have been way too busy in his tv career to also have had time to go running around assassinating people for the CIA, despite his claim he murdered 33 people. I don’t know what to believe.

I just know that one my best friends from school was the only other female in the school who thought, as I did at the time, that Chuck Barris is definitely one of the sexiest men alive. And, if I am ever in so sick I have to be in a hospital, I want to be watching videotapes of the GONG SHOW! (I may even put that in my will.) :)

A current interview, Jan 1, 2003, from Jewsweek: CLICK HERE for this article:

From Jewsweek: The Viduy of Chuck Barris

The new film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is based on the life of Gong Show host Chuck Barris. In it the Jewish television legend claims he was a game show host by day and a CIA assassin by night. A Q&A with Barris helps clear the air ... a little.

Chuck Barris then.

Chuck Barris now.

BEING CHUCK BARRIS: Chuck Barris (right) and Sam Rockwell, who portrays Barris in the new film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

The lengthy autobiographical article about Chuck Barris from SALON, dated March 2001, can be seen if you CLICK HERE.:

From Salon: Chuck Barris
Long before "Survivor," the eccentric who created "The Gong Show" discovered that people will do anything to get on TV, and others will watch them….

Chuck Barris, Host of The Gong Show.

After checking several Glenn Ford fan sites last night, I noticed that one mentioned "good will" tours Ford made to Vietnam. My hunch is that either through sloppiness or idolatrous exagerration, one of Ford's fans turned those "tours" into "tours of duty," maybe another fanatic turned them into service with the Green Berets, and the other fanatics merely copied the tall tale on their sites.

In any event, such fibbing was never necessary. The man served his country honorably in WWII. There's no need to turn him into a Superman.

Good Evening All-

Just watched Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and didn't find it to be too good of a movie...even if it is supposed to be based on a true story.

It might be interesting to read the Chuck Barris autobiography, but then again, I might then be subjecting myself to the rantings of a lunatic. Has any other CIA-related information surfaced since this thread was active last year?

~ Blue Jays ~

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