The Life of Reilly

Nothing nor no one says obscurity as sarcastically, nasally, or flamingly as does Charles Nelson Reilly. The man who was apparently famous owing merely to his witty and flamboyent disposition, achieved most of his renown through notable guest apperances on television sitcoms from the 60's and 70's. His early resumé included Car 54, Where Are You?, The Patty Duke Show, What's My Line? The Dean Martin Show, and—most notably—his seemingly permanent rent-free tenure on The Match Game.

The Match Game, if you don't remember, was one of the highest-rated television game shows throughout the entire 1960's decade which featured a combination of up-and-coming stars (who would generally appear on a series of four or five shows) and the fabulously vague or washed up actors (a la Charles Nelson Reilly in the top right corner and the always drunken and violent Brett Somers beside him).



The Match Game, hosted by the absolutely skeletony Gene Rayburn, was responsible for exploiting the success of such freshman actors/ TV personalities and washed-up has-beens such as Ed McMahon (Star Search host), Jayne Mansfield (50's Hollywood sex icon), Liza Minelli (notriously hideous [honorary niece] of Frank Sinatra and daughter of Judy Garland [ I orginally mistakenly referred to Mrs. Minnelli as the daughter of Debbie Reynolds until Jeremy pointed out my oversight.] ), Marilu Henner (Taxi), Dom DeLuise (notable fat man), Lauren Bacall (famous actress and Humphrey Bogart widow), Bob Crane (title character from Hogan's Heroes), Gary Burghoff (a.k.a. "Radar" from M*A*S*H), and—of course—William Shatner.


But I digress.

Charles Nelson Reilly, though gaining popular recognition—even a household name in the sixties and seventies (classicgameshows.com, 1998), remained an ambiguously famous television icon.



And no one knew why. Still, Charles Nelson Reilly continued making notable guest appearances on various television programs, rounding out the 70's, into the 80's, beyond the 90's, and well into the new milleneum. Soon, his very lengthy resumé included guest spots on shows such as The Love Boat, B.L. Striker, Charles in Charge, WKRP in Cincinatti, Goof Troop, Designing Women, The X Files, Family Matters, The Larry Sanders Show, The Drew Carey Show, all culminating to the most important work of career—a guest voice on SpongeBob SquarePants.



Then, of couse, Reilly waits until he's an old wrinkled man to do his gayest work to date—literally. In the non-critically acclaimed short film, GAYDAR ("It knows who you are!"), Reilly portrays Uncle Vincent, a seasoned homosexual who is out to deny the old adage, "you can't teach old dogs new tricks." Or something of that ilk. (GAYDAR was later anthologized in the Gay Shorts Collection.)


So what do you do, as a 74 year old man, after a lifetime of barely-earned fame and about three thousand television guest appearances to your credit? Logically, you write and star in an autobiographical stage-play that attempts to explain exactly how you came to drink cognac, eat caviar, and rub elbows with the likes of Johnny Weissmuller, Dean Martin, and Mae West.Deny it if you will, but it is the wise of actors like Charles Nelson Reilly who should be ingrained deep within the American pop-cultural psyche, if only for their constant whining and annoying persistence to be there.