Chuck Barris grew up in Philadelphia, where he was born in 1929 ... or 1930 ... or 1932. Although he's written two autobiographies, he hasn't gone into much detail about his childhood. Not that what he writes can be trusted anyway: He filled his first, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: An Unauthorized Autobiography," in 1984, with tales of his adventures as a CIA assassin. In his second memoir, "The Game Show King: A Confession," in 1993, he made nary a mention of his CIA fantasy, or even of the first book. Some of the stories in the first book are repeated in the second, but with differing details. He once wrote a lovely essay for Sports Illustrated in which he described promising to marry his future wife if Jim Plunkett of the Oakland Raiders completed a touchdown pass in the football game they were listening to on the radio in Los Angeles. In "The Game Show King," the promise comes in a New York hospital as his would-be bride lies in agony with peritonitis. Though most sources cite his birth date as June 3, 1929, he wrote about his 50th birthday occurring in 1980 in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," and once wrote another Sports Illustrated piece in which he recalled being an 18-year-old vendor in Shibe Park in 1950.

Here's the story according to Barris: He's the son of "a less than inspiring dentist." The family, which included a sister seven years younger than Chuck, was left with nothing when his father died of a stroke. Barris, who graduated from Drexel Institute of Technology in 1953, bounced around for a few years in various jobs, including TelePrompTer salesman (he says he never sold one), book salesman (never sold one) and fight promoter. He eventually moved to New York, married the former Lyn Levy, got a job as a page at NBC, conned his way into a prestigious management training program by forging letters of recommendation from members of the board of NBC's parent company, RCA -- NBC executives never checked -- then joined the daytime sales department and promptly got laid off in an efficiency cutback. (In typically untrustworthy Barris fashion, the parent company in his telling of this story is General Electric, which hadn't owned NBC since 1932, and wouldn't again until 1986.)

He pounded the pavement for a year, unable to land a job until an ABC executive asked him if he wanted a temporary gig: Barris was to take the train to Philadelphia every day, sit on the set of "American Bandstand" and keep an eye on Dick Clark, who was caught up in the payola scandal. He had a stake in publishing companies, record labels and even pressing plants whose records he promoted heavily on "American Bandstand." ABC forced him to divest himself of his music business interests and, Barris says, assigned Barris as his watchdog for a few weeks until he could go to Washington and testify before a House subcommittee. Barris would at least get a new suit out of the deal, because ABC thought a watchdog should dress the part.

But Clark didn't go to Washington for more than a year. In the meantime he gave Barris a desk and chair and made him feel welcome. With nothing to do, Barris wrote a long memo every day detailing the minutiae of the show, along with some jokes and philosophical observations. Barris claims that the sheer heft of his 500-page document helped Clark come out of the hearings unscathed, earning Barris a lifetime friend in Clark and a full-time job in ABC's daytime television department.

It didn't take Barris long to get in trouble with the ABC suits. Though not a musician (his no-volume electric guitar playing on "The Gong Show" notwithstanding), he managed to write the song "Palisades Park" and get it to Freddie "Boom Boom" Cannon -- a good friend of Clark's: He appeared on "American Bandstand" more than any other artist, and recorded for Swan Records, formerly a Clark label. Cannon's 1962 record went to No. 3, and ABC, which didn't want another payola investigation, forbade him from writing more. Barris has claimed to have written subsequent hits pseudonymously, but Cannon told the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call in 1999 that he called Barris after the song broke, looking for more hits. "It was a fluke. I guess the guy just had one great song in him."

After convincing the network to let him open an office in Los Angeles, Barris made a pilot for a game show called "People Poker." There were five people from each of three professions, plus a "wild card," and contestants had to correctly guess the professions to collect a poker hand. Three electricians and two mechanics, say, would beat a pair of each. On the pilot show, according to "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," the talent booker used five brain surgeons, five cops and five hookers, all female. The cops and hookers started fighting. The show never sold.

Meanwhile, Barris was bridling at ABC's conservatism and bureaucracy. When he got in trouble again, for replacing his cumbersome title (director of daytime television programs, American Broadcasting Company, West Coast Division) with a sleeker one -- duke of daytime -- he decided he'd had enough, and struck out on his own. His mother had remarried a wealthy man. Barris borrowed $20,000 from his stepfather, developed "The Dating Game" and sold it to ABC, which paid for a pilot, but didn't put the show on its schedule, effectively killing it.

Barris was devastated, but good news was on the way. Two of ABC's new game shows were tanking, and the network needed replacements fast. "The Dating Game" was back in business. The show's format was simple: A pretty young bachelorette would interview three prospective bachelors she couldn't see. She'd choose one to spend a night on the town with. The game was sometimes played in reverse, with a bachelor and three bachelorettes. The whole thing was presided over by Jim Lange, a low-key disc jockey from San Francisco.

But as the shows began taping, Barris ran into an unforeseen problem: The contestants were getting down and dirty!

Bachelorette: Bachelor No. 3, make up a poem for me.
Bachelor No. 3: Dollar for dollar and ounce for ounce, I'll give you pleasure 'cause I'm big where it counts.

Bachelorette: Bachelor No. 3, what's the funniest thing you were ever caught doing when you thought nobody was looking?
Bachelor No. 3: I was caught with a necktie around my dick.

Bachelorette: Bachelor No. 1, I play the trombone. If I blew you, what would you sound like?

Bachelorette: Bachelor No. 2, what does a rabbi do on his day off?
Bachelor No. 2: A rabbit?
Bachelorette: No, a rabbi.
Bachelor No. 2: How the fuck do I know?

And so on.

Unable to use the shows with the blue talk, Barris hired an actor to come to the set and play an FBI agent. The actor warned the contestants that it's a federal offense to curse or even hint at anything lewd on the air. The contestants, none of whom were legal scholars, bought it. Barris was able to deliver shows that ABC could air, and "The Dating Game" became a hit.

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