Charles Nelson Reilly Dies at 76

Charles Nelson Reilly was always a favorite of my mom's, and became a favorite of mine, though I only really know him from Match Game. When I heard he died while we were on vacation, I was completely bummed. From an article I found on the internets:


Reilly's comic timing, honed by years of working in theater before coming out to Hollywood, was impeccable. And he wielded his booming voice to demonstrate just how uproarious the missed obvious can be.

There's a reason why, even after his TV career had shrunk, he was in demand as an acting coach, and a stage star as peerless as Julie Harris repeatedly would ask him to be her director. He had won a Tony for "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," which he did between "Hello, Dolly!" and "Bye Bye Birdie" -- a six-year Broadway span that had been preceded by a decade of off-Broadway and stock. He had known immense struggle before arriving at success in New York, and when he was offered highly remunerative work in Hollywood, he wasn't about to snub it.

Yet it wasn't long before he realized that the greatest role he would be offered was that of Charles Nelson Reilly. Self-dramatizing by nature, he knew the depth, intelligence and heart of his character, and he had no need to bluff.

Still, as he related in his solo show, he was astonished by his success in the part. Never would he have imagined that he -- an oddball kid from the Bronx -- would have appeared, by his own count, more than 100 times on "The Tonight Show" and been able to circle his name 38 times in the TV Guide listings for a single week.