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Wolf Files: Top Weird Stories of 2003

(Page 8 of 10)

8. The Spy Who Gonged Me: Leave it to former Gong Show host Chuck Barris to break the CIA's legendary code of silence.

Barris — the master of schlock TV — had been claiming for years that he was a hired assassin for the CIA, killing 33 enemy agents in dangerous assignments all over the world.

As a matter of policy, the CIA never reveals who it employs in its cloak and dagger games. Most people just sloughed off the game show host's wild claims as a lame attempt to spice up his autobiography. After all, this is a guy who hosted a TV talent show that featured a 300-lb. stripper who sang "I Gotta Be Me" and a banjo-playing vampire known as "Count Banjula."

But in January, however, when George Clooney turned the outlandish TV producer's secret life into Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the CIA was not amused and the famously stoic agency issued this historic statement:

"Chuck Barris never worked for the CIA. The notion that he worked for the CIA as an assassin is utterly ridiculous. Mr. Barris used to host The Gong Show … And he may have spent too much time next to the gong." [Next: First Family Bad Boys]

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