Did two serial killers meet in the dating game?
Having experienced the 1960s and 1970s growing up, I thought I had heard and seen just about everything on TV. US presidential candidate Richard Nixon appeared briefly at Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In to help him secure the youth vote. The Communist Party USA held a fundraiser on TV and raised about $1,000. Legendary singer James Brown performed one of his sexually charged tunes on a star-studded telethon to raise money for the Democratic Party.
Brown must have been really interested in the song because in the middle of it he started taking off his pants! After a few seconds, the camera panned to his face and he stayed there for the rest of his performance. The embarrassed hosts then pretended it never happened and moved on to the next act. Controversy was the name of the game back then if you wanted ratings, but the most scandalous TV event of all took place behind the scenes on The Dating Game without anyone knowing.
The Dating Game was the brainchild of TV show magician Chuck Barris, who also created The Newlywed Game and The Gong Show. ABC bought the concept, and the show began airing in December 1965. It became so popular that ABC created a prime-time version in 1966. In all, the show ran from 1965 to 1999 with a couple of reruns and four presenters, starting with Jim Lange and ending with Chuck Woolery.
Due to the popularity of the show, many aspiring actors and performers wanted to be contestants on the FaceTime the show provided, especially after the primetime version began. Among those who appeared on The Dating Game before they became famous or at the beginning of their entertainment careers were Michael Jackson, Burt Reynolds, Farrah Fawcett, Suzanne Somers, Lindsay Wagner, Leif Garrett, Tom Selleck, Lee Majors, The Carpenters, Andy Kaufman, Steve Martin, John Ritter, Phil Hartman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dusty Springfield, Maureen McCormick, Barry Williams, Sally Field, Richard Dawson, and Paul Lynde.
The show had a fun format. Three guys (Bachelorette) were answering funny questions from a girl (Bachelorette) who was separated from them by a wall. She couldn’t see her suitors. After a designated period of time, she had to choose one. Reactions varied, but at least the bachelorette parties could look forward to an amazing evening or three. The prize was an escorted date somewhere exotic or an expensive stay. The chaperone was a good idea in case you got stuck with a guy who was a little too sensitive and sensitive. It was also helpful if you happen to be Cheryl Bradshaw.
In 1978, Cheryl was a bachelorette on The Dating Game. Her pick of three guys of hers included Rodney Alcala, who was the number 1 bachelor. He was introduced as a professional photographer who enjoyed skydiving and motorcycling as hobbies. Bachelor No. 2 Jed Mills, who sat next to Alcala, later said, “He was creepy. Definitely creepy.” However, he was fluent in speech and could easily be suave when it suited him. Maybe that’s why Cheryl Bradshaw chose it as the winner.
As soon as Alcala walked around the wall and found her, he smiled and said, “We’re going to have a good time together, Cheryl.” But not. After having a conversation with him backstage, Cheryl told a newspaper reporter that Alcala made her feel sick and she declined the date. Good move. In 1968 he was convicted of raping an eight-year-old girl. During and after his appearance on Dating Game, he was killing girls, earning him the nickname “The Dating Game Killer”. A detective called him a “Killing Machine” during a trial in 2010. He may have been killing since the late 1960s. He was already a serial rapist and serial killer at the time.
Alcala used photography as a way to get girls and boys to come along, promising them professional photos or a modeling assignment. He asked or forced them to undress, then photographed and raped them. He enjoyed strangling girls almost unconscious and then reviving them. He did this multiple times and it is possible that he too raped them each time until he finally killed them. He also photographed teenagers in the nude and in various sexual poses. He tended to let them go. One survivor said that he had several young girls naked in the shoot and that he liked to pose them with teenage boys.
Still on probation for the rape and some marijuana busts, Alcala’s probation officer inexplicably allowed him to travel to New York in 1977 for an alleged photography assignment. While there, Alcalá killed Ellen Jane Hover (23). She was the daughter of the owner of Ciro’s in Hollywood. Her remains were later found at the Rockefeller Estate in Westchester County. Acala raped and murdered in various states and the exact number of his victims is unknown. He photographed hundreds of girls and adolescents. The identities of most of those in the photos remain unknown. He was sentenced to death in California.
It is unknown if Chuck Barris was on the set of Dating Game the day the episode with Rodney Alcala was taped. If it were, there’s a chance that two serial killers who murdered for completely different reasons would have set an even more macabre record for a TV show. The obvious question is whether Chuck Barris was a CIA hitman as stated in the book ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’. It is a difficult question to answer. Some of those close to the entertainment businessman when he died at the age of 87 had an opinion on the controversy, but their opinions were divided.
The type of recruiting and assignments described in the book are actually somewhat atypical for a covert government agency. On the one hand, it is not very difficult to know those procedures. On the other hand, the book is written in a way that makes the reader believe that someone actually experienced those things. However, those situations could just as easily apply to an organization like the Mossad as to the CIA. So that’s another possibility.
Watching the Gong Show exposes Barris as a moody guy who experiences emotions in a way that says more important things than the show were going on in his life. Those might have been family things given his tumultuous relationships and the drug and alcohol addictions that ultimately took the life of his daughter. While many believe Chuck’s CIA story was probably just him imagining an afterlife, I say the jury is still out on the story until more facts or witnesses turn up.
They want more? Read Guide to Serial Killers: The Best of the Worst
http://cknell.tripod.com/serial.html