Chuck Barris - Della: A Memoir of My Daughter

Also by Chuck Barris

Who Killed Art Deco?

The Big Question

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Bad Grass Never Dies: The Sequel to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

The Game Show King

You and Me, Babe: A Novel

A Memoir of My Daughter

CHUCK BARRIS

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Designed by Jill Putorti

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barris, Chuck.

Della: a memoir of my daughter / Chuck Barris.

p. cm.

1. Barris, Chuck. 2. Television producers and directorsUnited StatesBiography. 3. Authors, American20th centuryBiography. 4. Barris, Della, 19621998.
5. Fathers and daughtersUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

PN1992.4.B37A3 2010

791.4502'80922dc22 2009048675

[B]

ISBN 978-1-4391-6799-1

ISBN 978-1-4391-6808-0 (ebook)

For Loretta

We may, indeed, say that the hour of death is uncertain, but when we say this we think of that hour as situated in a vague and remote expanse of time; it does not occur to us that it can have any connection with the day that has already dawned.

Marcel Proust

I have used as sources for this book the times Della and I spent together, the many letters Della sent to me, and the letters she sent to Judy Ducharme, a woman whom Della considered closer to her than most. Also snapshots and photographs I took, Della took, and Judy took, telephone conversations between Della and myself, conversations with Dellas friends, and conversations and events I have taken the liberty of reconstructing, knowing Della as well as I did.

Some names have been changed to protect others privacy. And no doubt time has eroded my memory for some of the details.

This is the story of Dellas life, as close to the truth as I have been able to come, in memory of her. I hope my book will be read as a cautionary tale, an attempt to warn parents and their children of the mistakes my daughter Della and I made. Though I wish it wasnt, this is a true story.

Chuck Barris
October 2008

DELLA

My daughter Della was thirty-six years old when she died. Her death certificate said she died from an overdose of drugs and alcohol.

Starting with what Della could remember, like taking her first steps into my arms in a park in Beverly Glen, California, and throughout her short life, Della saw everything as a collection of snapshots. Its weird, but thats how she saw it. After a while, I saw my life the same way.

I took some of those pictures of Dellas life. Judy Ducharme, Dellas companion since her early childhood, took some too. So did Della. But according to my nonreligious daughter, God was the one who took all the ones we missed, and His photos, according to her, were the best. In her mind, God stood by her side from the day she was born, snapping pictures.

Della described it this way: He uses His big box camera; a humongous, square black thing. Gods camera takes snapshots that dont fall into your hand like Polaroids do. They pop right into your head and stay there forever.

The snapshot of my dead daughter on a couch in her apartment was not a good example of great photography. And wasnt a picture God, or Della, or I took. The snapshot was taken by a police photographer.

If Della were talking about this picture, I imagine she would have said, I look awful dont I? I know Im dead, but still...

She does look awful. Her skin is gray. Her body is bone thin. Her eyes have dark circles around them. Her cheeks are sunken. She looks like a Holocaust victim. Her hair had been dyed orange so many times it is beginning to fall out. Imagine, orange hair! Why did she dye her hair orange?

Della would have said, Because it was my favorite color. Was I weird or was I weird? No, I was stupid. I mean, lying there dead at my age in a frigging police picture says it all, doesnt it?

Dellas three little dogs were probably nearby, sitting around her feet at the far end of the couch. They were alive and well. Just confused and scared to death. The dogs knew Della was dead. Dogs know those things. Dellas dogs always slept at her feet when she went to bed at night. If she took a nap on the couch they slept there too.

Tom-the-dog-walker found Della when he came to walk the dogs at eight in the morning. Tom told me no matter how wild Della was the night before, or how often she fell asleep on the couch, she always managed to open one eye in the morning and mumble a greeting to Tom. That morning, she didnt mumble anything. Tom looked at Della closely, shook her shoulders, and when she didnt move, Tom called the police.

In the police picture, the vodka bottle with a small amount of vodka at the bottom is still on the coffee table with all the other detritus. A little cocaine remains in the Ziploc baggie next to the vodka bottle. Della obviously didnt use all the cocaine. Only enough to kill her.

My mother, Dellas grandmother, thought Della committed suicide.

Why would she do that and leave her three dogs behind? I asked my mother. Della loved her dogs. Im sure Della would have thought of her dogs before she did anything like take her life, dont you?

No, answered my mother. Suicidal people dont think about things like who will take care of their dogs when they kill themselves. Suicides dont give a damn about dogs, about themselves, about their parents, about anything. Della was too inconsiderate to think about anything or anyone but herself.

The Los Angeles coroner thought Della ingested too much vodka and cocaine.

I wish the coroner would talk to my mother.

There were two men in Dellas life at the time of her death. Tom-the-dog-walker and Strickland-the-dope-peddler. Tom-the-dog-walker was a really nice guy, and a peaceful soul. Strickland-the-dope-peddler was a scumbag and had an aura of violence about him.

Neighbors told the police they could hear Strickland and Della shouting at each other two nights before the dog walker found Della dead. Strickland was a good shouter. He was also good at scoring drugs, but not much good at anything else. I would like to have thought Strickland was guilty of something regarding Dellas death, so I could have beaten him within an inch of his life, but I dont think the idiot had anything to do with it, other than contributing drugs, which in itself was major.