Chuck Barris

American TV personality, entertainment executive, actor and writer, he is perhaps best known for hosting "The Gong Show." The game show host began his career in TV in low-level jobs. In 1962, he wrote a song, "Palisades Park" which became a hit when recorded by Freddie Cannon. The following year, 1963, ABC sent him to Los Angeles as a director of daytime programming, but he quit a few months later. Borrowing $20,000, he conceived of "The Dating Game," and sold it to ABC. The success of that show led to another creation, "The Newlywed Game." His company, "Chuck Barris Productions" prospered in the 1970s. In the 80s, however, he sold his share to a publicly held production company that continued using his name. In 1980, he wrote and starred in "The Gong Show Movie," also featuring his daughter Della, who died of a drug overdose in 1998. When the movie flopped, he moved to France with his second wife, Robin Altman. In 1985, he produced a TV special, "Anything for a Laugh," a compilation of all his game shows. He divorced Robin in 1999, and, by 2002, survived lung cancer and married Mary Kane, 30 years his junior. While recuperating from surgery to remove the tumor from his lungs, he began writing. A movie based on a memoir, published in 1984, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," was released in December 27, 2002. Barris died on 21 March 2017 of natural causes at his home in Palisades, New York at the age of 87. Link to Wikipedia biography