Reilly was born January 13, 1931,[1] in New York City in the Bronx, to an Irish-Catholic father and a Swedish Lutheran mother.[2] When young, he would amuse himself by creating puppet theater, and his mother often told him to "save it for the stage".[3]
At age 13, he survived the 1944 Hartford Circus Fire, which killed 167 people in Connecticut,[4] and he was afraid to sit in an audience ever again. Because of the event's trauma, he rarely attended theater, stating that the large crowds reminded him of what happened that day.[5] As he often stated on The Tonight Show and other such venues, even as the director of a play or stage production, he preferred to sit at the back of the house or the back of a balcony near the exits to preview his work, including one time where his leading lady's costume caught fire (but on recounting this episode to Johnny Carson, Reilly assured him "but you know, these things always work out okay.")
Reilly made his film debut with an uncredited role in A Face in the Crowd (1957), directed by Elia Kazan, although most of his early career was spent on the stage. He was a regular performer in comic roles for several summer seasons in the 1950s at the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri. Reilly appeared in many Off Broadway productions. His big break came in 1960 with the enormously successful original Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie. In the groundbreaking musical, Reilly had a small onstage part and was Dick Van Dyke's understudy/replacement for the leading role.[7]
In 1964, Reilly was in the original cast of Hello, Dolly!, another successful Broadway show. For originating the role of Cornelius Hackl, Reilly received a second nomination for a Tony Award for performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical.[8]
Television
Reilly kept active in Broadway shows but he became better known for his TV work, appearing regularly on television in the 1960s. He appeared as a Mystery Guest and was a panelist on the What's My Line? quiz show. In 1965 he appeared several times on The Steve Lawrence Show, which aired for a single season. Television commercials that he made throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s included Excedrin, Bic Banana Ink Crayons and Purina Mills Dog Food.
Reilly was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, appearing more than 100 times.[9] He was a lively and reliable talk-show guest and lived within blocks of the Burbank studios where The Tonight Show was taped, so he was often asked to be a last-minute replacement for scheduled guests who canceled or did not make it to the studio on time.[9]
Reilly was a fixture on game shows, primarily due to his appearances as a regular panelist on Match Game. He was one of the longest-running guests, and often engaged in playful banter with fellow regular Brett Somers (the two generally sat next to each other on the show—Somers in the upper middle seat and Reilly in the upper right seat). He typically offered sardonic commentary and peppered his answers with homosexuality-themed double entendres which pushed the boundaries of 1970s television standards.[10]
During the taping of Match Game '74, Reilly left for a short time to film Hamburgers (1974) and to star in the Neil Simon play God's Favorite (December 1974 to March 1975). From 1975 to 1976, he starred in another live-action children's program titled Uncle Croc's Block, with Jonathan Harris. He was often a guest celebrity on the 1984 game show Body Language, including one week with Lucille Ball and another week with Audrey Landers.[11]
Later career
From 1976, Reilly primarily taught acting and directing for television and theater, including directing Julie Harris (with whom he had acted in Skyscraper in 1965–66), who was portraying Emily Dickinson in her one-woman Broadway play The Belle of Amherst, by William Luce. In 1979, he directed Ira Levin's play Break a Leg on Broadway. Despite the previous year's success of Levin's Deathtrap,Break a Leg closed after one performance. Within days, Reilly appeared on The Tonight Show, joking and speaking at length about the show's failure, saying, "So [a play] can open and last six years, eight years ... or two hours and five minutes." Reilly earned a 1997 Tony Award nomination as Best Director of a Play for the revival of The Gin Game, starring Julie Harris.[8]
In 1988, Reilly hosted the syndicated game show Sweethearts, which ran for one season.[12]
Magazine and newspaper profiles of Reilly throughout the 1970s and 1980s did not mention his personal life. Years after the cancellation of Match Game, he revealed his orientation as gay in his July 2000 theatrical one-man showSave It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly.[15]
Much like fellow actor and game-show regular Paul Lynde of the same era, despite Reilly's off-camera silence, he gave signals on-camera of a campy persona. In many episodes of Match Game, he lampooned himself by briefly affecting "YO!" in a deep voice, using the nickname "Chuck", and self-consciously describing how "butch" he was. Many years after his game show career ended, he mentioned in a 2002 interview with Entertainment Tonight that he felt no need to explain his jokes about Chuck and that he never purposely hid his homosexuality from anyone. Patrick Hughes, a set decorator and dresser, was Reilly's domestic partner; the two met backstage while Reilly appeared on the game show Battlestars, although their partnership was not revealed publicly. They lived together in Beverly Hills.[16]
Reilly did appear on several episodes of the game show Tattletales with actress Elizabeth Allen as a couple, though their "relationship" was never discussed on the air.
Reilly was associated with the United States Coast Guard and made at least two films in conjunction with the Coast Guard.[17][18] He regularly advertised National Safe Boating Week as a panelist on Match Game.[19] Reilly died on May 25, 2007, the last day of National Safe Boating Week.[20]
Despite sporting what appeared to be a full head of hair for most of the prime of his television career, Reilly was in fact bald, wearing a toupée throughout most of his appearances in the 1970s and 1980s.[21] During the taping of Match Game '74, his toupée became a joke when Reilly had to go to New York City to have his toupée adjusted. During the taping of several episodes, Reilly was seen wearing different hats because his toupée was back in New York waiting for him to be fitted. This was the start of the long-running jokes on Match Game about his hair. He abandoned the toupée in the late 1990s and appeared bald in all of his subsequent public events. He dramatized the experience in his stage show The Life of Reilly.[21] In one episode of Match Game PM, he took off his toupée and gave it to a bald contestant by putting it on his head. One can briefly see Reilly's bald head before he covers it up with a hat.[21]
Final years and death
Reilly in 2000
Reilly spent his later life primarily touring the U.S. directing theater and opera and offering audiences a glimpse into his background and personal life with a critically acclaimed one-man play chronicling his life, titled Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly. In 2004, his final two performances of his play in North Hollywood, California, were recorded as the basis of an autobiographical independent film titled The Life of Reilly.[22]
Reilly was stricken with respiratory problems while filming The Life of Reilly and retired from directing and performing immediately after the final day of shooting in 2004. The movie premiered in March 2006 at the South by Southwest film festival, and Reilly's film performance was acclaimed. He cancelled his personal appearance at South by Southwest due to his illness, and by the time the film premiered, he had been hospitalized. Reilly died of complications from pneumonia at the UCLA Medical Center on May 25, 2007.[23] That weekend, the Game Show Network dedicated its programming to Reilly, airing some of his funniest episodes of Match Game.[24]
For Big Lizard in My Backyard, their 1985 debut album, Philadelphia punk band The Dead Milkmen recorded a song titled "Serrated Edge" that features numerous absurd references to Reilly as a Jesus figure and orgy centerpiece.[25]
In 2001, Reilly was the subject of a sketch on Saturday Night Live, spoofing Inside the Actors Studio, and was portrayed by Alec Baldwin. A later Baldwin character, the Generalissimo from 30 Rock, mentions both Julie Harris and The Belle of Amherst, which Reilly had directed. A 2008 parody of Match Game on Saturday Night Live included Fred Armisen playing a Reilly-like character. In the sketch, the host is found murdered moments before the show's taping; the subsequent on-air police investigation reveals that he had been having a clandestine homosexual affair with the Reilly character. Baldwin briefly reprised his portrayal of Reilly in the 30 Rock episode "Live from Studio 6H" (West Coast airing), appearing on the "joke wall" in a parody of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.[citation needed]
"Weird Al" Yankovic wrote and recorded a tribute song titled "CNR" done in the style of The White Stripes, jokingly caricaturing Reilly with parodies of the internet phenomenon Chuck Norris Facts, with absurdities like winning the Tour de France "with two flat tires and a missing chain", or how "every day he'd make the host of Match Game give him a piggyback ride". This was part of Yankovic's digital Internet Leaks EP and was included on the 2011 CD release Alpocalypse. The music video was released by JibJab on August 4, 2009.[26] Yankovic again referenced Reilly within a sight gag present in the end credits of his 2022 spoof biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story which implies that Reilly engaged in career-long stalking of the fictionalized Yankovic.
In season two, episode one of The Life and Times of Tim, one character observes another acting a line from their play and says, "I saw Charles Nelson Reilly do that, and you did it better."[27]
^Gianoulis, Tina (2006). "Reilly, Charles Nelson (b. 1931)". glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. Archived from the original on February 12, 2007. Retrieved April 7, 2007.
