Personal Life
Barris' uncle was singer/songwriter/actor Harry Barris. His first wife was Lyn Levy, the niece of one of the founders of CBS. Together they had a daughter, Della, who sometimes appeared on The Gong Show during its run from 1976-1980. Della died of a drug overdose from alcohol and cocaine in 1998, at age 36. By the time of her death, she was also HIV-positive.
Barris, who presently resides outside Palisades, New York, has since married twice more, to "Red" Robin Altman, and later to Mary Rudolph.
In a 2010 interview on NBC's The Today Show, Barris said he disagreed with the "tough love" philosophy of dealing with addicted children, and that he regretted having allowed Della to leave home at age 16. He stated he doesn't believe her death was a suicide, but rather, was accidental.
Read more about this topic: Chuck Barris
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“I was not at all apprehensive about ... disease ... [it] had no terrors for me. The thing I most feared in the world was hunger. That was something of which I had personal knowledge.”
—Madeleine [Blair], U.S. prostitute and “madam.” Madeleine, ch. 4 (1919)
“They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others. Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)