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Charles Nelson Reily was a popular American actor, comedian, director and drama teacher known for his roles in movies, children’s television, animated cartoons, and as a panelist on the game show Match Game.

He was born in the Bronx, New York to Charles Joseph Reilly, an Irish Catholic commercial artist, and Signe Elvera Nelson, a Swedish Lutheran. Already at a young age he would create his own puppet theater to entertain himself. His mother, foreshadowing his future as an entertainer, often would tell him to “save it for the stage”.

At age 13, Charles Nelson Reily escaped the Hartford Circus Fire where tragically over a hundred people died. As a result of that traumatic experience he never sat in an audience again through the remainder of his life (Riley died on May 25, 2007 at the age of 76).

Charles Nelson Reilly made his first motion-picture appearance in 1957, playing an uncredited role in “A Face in the Crowd”, directed by Elia Kazan. Most of his work during this period was on the stage. Reilly appeared in many Off-Broadway productions.

In 1971, Charles Nelson Reilly played “Hoodoo” the evil magician in Lidsville, a psychedelically flavored live-action children’s program produced by Sid and Marty Krofft airing on Saturday mornings on ABC. The show was about a boy who falls into a magician’s hat and enters a magical world of hat-humans.

During the 1970s, Reily also appeared as a regular on The Dean Martin Show, and had multiple guest appearances on television series including McMillan and Wife, Here’s Lucy, Laugh In, The Love Boat, and Love, American Style. He was also a frequent guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, appearing more than a hundred times. From 1980, Charles Nelson Reilly was actively teaching acting and directing for television and theater.

Charles Nelson Reily was nominated for Emmy Awards in 1998 and 1999 for his performances in The Drew Carey Show and Millennium, respectively. From the late 1990s, Reilly directed theater and opera, touring the country performing a critically acclaimed one-man stage show chronicling his life called Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly, where he publicly proclaimed being a homosexual. Just like Paul Lynde, his contemporary game show regular, Reilly played up a campy on-screen persona. Reiley would also occasionally perform as the voice of “The Dirty Bubble” on the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants.

Charles Nelson Reilly was parodied by Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live in which Reilly is interviewed by James Lipton (played by Will Ferrell) on Inside the Actors Studio. On October 8, 2007, Samantha Bee, a reporter for The Daily Show, stated that if someone is ruled to be gay by the Supreme Court of the United States, then they are in Charles Nelson Reilly territory.

Source: Wikipedia

Posted by Aiden

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 1:10 am and is filed under Celebrities, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.