Chuck Barris, 3/21/17, age 87

Chuck Barris, host of The Gong Show, died Tuesday, March 21, of natural causes in Palisades, New York, The Associated Press confirmed. He was 87.

Best known for hosting the 1970s NBC game show The Gong Show, he also created the game shows The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game.

Barris got his start in TV as a page and later staffer at NBC in NYC, eventually working backstage at the TV music show American Bandstand as a standards-and-practices person for ABC. He was promoted to the daytime programming division at ABC in LA and was put in charge of deciding which game shows the network would air. During his time there, many suggested that he become a producer and in June 14, 1965 he formed his production company Chuck Barris Productions.

Additional credits include Dream Girl of ’67, Operation: Entertainment, Treasure Hunt, Cop Out!, The All-New Dating Game and 3’s a Crowd, among others.

He called himself “The King of Daytime Television,” but to critics he was “The King of Schlock” or “The Baron of Bad Taste.” As The Gong Show and his other series were slipping, he sold his company for a reported $100 million in 1980 and decided to go into films. From there, he directed and starred in The Gong Show Movie, a thundering failure that stayed in theaters only a week.

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