- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Ebury Press; New edition edition (6 Mar 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0091890373
- ISBN-13: 978-0091890377
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.6 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
85,324 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #79 in Books > Biography > Film, Television & Music > Theatre Performers
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Product Description
Review
'A weirdly compelling autobiography', Jonathan Ross, Daily Mirror .'Barris' life has been by turns insane, frightening, reckless and desparate ... his life story is nothing short of spectacular and brilliant to read', Front
Product Description
Suspense, excess, danger and exuberant fun come together in Chuck Barris's unlikely autobiography - the tale of a wildly flamboyant 1970s television producer of innovative game shows such as The Gong Show and The Dating Game. What most people don't know is that Barris spent close to two decades as a decorated covert assassin for the CIA, claiming to have killed over thirty people. He joined the CIA as an agent in the early 1960's. He infiltrated the Civil Rights movement, met with militant Muslims in Harlem, and was sent abroad to kill enemies of the American state, even as his game shows began to soar to ratings success. Confessions of A Dangerous Mind is a wild and improbable tale spiced with intrigue, sex , bad behaviour, and plenty of one-liners.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Chuck Barris is a successful producer of trash TV gameshows (British viewers will remember him best for the Gong Show, although he's also the man behind the shows that became Blind Date and Mr and Mrs here), with all the Hollywood neuroses that normally go with that particular job - womanising, drinking, fast cars, etc. So half of this book's a biography of a successful seventies media tycoon with a severe case of self-loathing.
Interspersed with this is Barris' other existence. He claims to have spent nearly twenty years as an assassin for the CIA, often using his TV work as a cover
The epsionage parts of the book are written with the same detail and insight as the more openly biographical parts. The tone's the same, the style's the same, the two parts of Barris' life fit together.... well enough to be true?
Barris emerges from this book as an intelligent, vulnerable man uncomfortable with the TV monsters he created. He could also either be painfully honest or lost in a world of his own delusions.
You be the judge.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a devotee of the gong show when it was on Channel 4 in the 1980s I wondered whatever had happened to Chuck Barris. The ludicrous acts, the whole gong thing and Chuck's self-conscious clapping made it very entertaining. So, when I stumbled upon the book in Canada, I bought it immediately.
It was a very good read. He has a good writing style. He is funny and he tells tales very well. My favourite parts were his description of a taxi driver, known as the Duck: "We did not know whether he was a very ugly man, or a very ugly woman." Also, his stories about
a) camping with his grandmother: and
b) crossing the Atlantic to Lisbon on a whim to have dinner with a woman he had spotted in an airport departure lounge, only to find that she had a black tooth, the country had had a revolution, there was a cholera outbreak and he could not take his money out of the country
brought strange looks from my fellow buspassengers as I read the book with tears in my eyes.
The CIA aspect of it literally incredible. If it is all made up, then he is the comic genius that I had always expected he was. If it is all true, the revelations about the operating methods of the CIA are facinating, even if it rather exposes him as an assassin. It got me thinking about the JFK shooting all over again.
On the plane back to Britain, they were showing the film. The book is ten times better. George Clooney and Julia Roberts seem to have bit parts, because the film relates the tale by jumping backwards and forwards in time. I am not sure how well I would have understood it if I had not read the book. The film does not convey the humour that the book has in abundance. I could not put this book down and I still cannot work out whether it is true or not. It gets five stars for being a great read.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Confessions is surprisingly well written, given the fact that the author was the producer and star of one of the most disturbing gameshows to ever disgrace my television screen. It's definitely a wild ride, but I often felt that Chuck B could have done a bit more to make it wilder. In particular, his tales of life in the CIA are fairly vague and decidedly low-tech relative to everything else I've ever read about "The Company".
At times the book reads like something from Hunter S. Thompson's glory days, but at other times, it reads like a former gameshow host writing about the behind-the-scenes drudgery of Hollywood. I definitely recommend the book, but it's not half as crazy as most other readers would lead you to believe.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Would I Lie to You?
People mistakenly believe that autobiographies belong in the non-fiction section. Countless times a celebrity will embellish their past or make themselves seem more important to... Read more
Published on 24 Nov 2008 by Sam
Dangerously lame
Chuck Barris, whom I'd never heard of prior to this book, attempts to marry his purported experiences as a CIA agent with his experiences as a game-show producer and host. Read more
Published on 26 Dec 2007 by Talc Demon
Real genius
This book is brilliant. Set in the ‘cold war’ era, it’s the autobiographical account of Chuck Bariss, who in the sixties was TV host by day and so he tells us, a... Read more
Published on 12 Dec 2003 by "el_zomba"
Interesting!?!
I was introduced to this book about 1 year ago by my father who had picked it up on business in the US. I really had no idea who Chuck barris was. Read more
Published on 11 Sep 2002 by T Waits
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