Sometime during my life travel as a person who works in the theatre, I came to realize that Charles Nelson Reilly, who died yesterday, was a genius. (And I use the word reservedly, but not in this case.)
As a kid I used to see him on “Match Game” and “Hollywood Squares,” in a regular featured role on “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” and in odd guest appearances on “McMillan and Wife” and, seemingly, every other show on television whether intended for adults or children. Reilly always played someone fussy and wacky, and became the subject of ridicule among my circle of friends in high school and college. I think we all loved him but thought it wasn’t cool to love him, so although we all knew who he was and all could discuss with some knowledge his various acting gigs, none of us embraced him as a performer. I remember thinking that the guy had found one thing he could do and had somehow parlayed it into this career.
When did I, well, grow up about this? I’m not sure. But I do know that by the time about five years ago I saw him in his one-man show “Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly,” I knew for sure that the man was brilliant. His show was somewhat scripted but largely improvised around set pieces, and consisted solely of Charles Nelson Reilly on-stage talking, and occasionally picking up a prop or going to a stage location and doing some more talking. That’s about it. It ran a staggering four hours (I am not exaggerating) and judging from the audience response could have run another four. That night I would have told you that Charles Nelson Reilly was not only the funniest man in the universe, he was the best actor as well. The show was 100% riveting and 1000% entertaining. After this four-hour personal extravaganza, which touched on his heartbreaking youth, his near-brush with death in the infamous Hartford circus tent fire (an event that clearly marked him; he never again sat in an audience, and in his show said that he still had nightmares about being trapped in that crowd burning to death), and his rise to success and celebrity, Reilly was then mobbed in the lobby for what seemed another four hours. People could not get enough. It was an astonishing performance — both the show itself and the show in the lobby — and now I’m sorry that that show has closed for good.
Looking back I can see how my friends and I were confused while young. Charles Nelson Reilly seemed like one of those “famous, but for nothing” game-show stars. No, Reilly was a hugely talented and highly trained Tony-winning actor who found himself on game shows, where an entire generation (mine) discovered him, and where he damaged his career.
In addition to his solo show, I got to meet Reilly several times. He was a Tony winner for “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and agreed to be part of a cast reunion fundraiser at USC about five years ago when the theatre school staged the show. (Somewhere around here I have three copies of signed cast-album CD’s.) We talked a bit afterward and he was kind and generous. I believe we had him as a presenter at the Ovation Awards but I can’t fully recall; what I do recall are endless discussions and great fear that he would talk all night in what was a tightly timed show. We also profiled him for LA Stage magazine, in a piece I didn’t write but did edit, and the photographer told me Reilly was generous with his time and very inventive in the photo shoot — which clearly showed in the pictures. And I saw him at numerous events and personal appearances and whatnot. He had a reputation for being difficult and cranky, but when I saw him he was always kind and generous and bitchy and very very funny.
He was also, as I said, a formally trained master. After 20 years of working with people who have studied television and film acting and who are now auditioning for the theatre and don’t seem to understand that there isn’t a microphone hanging 10 inches above their heads, I’ve grown to appreciate that more and more. In the theatre, craft is supremely important. It is not enough just to show up, and it is certainly not enough to just “be brave,” as David Mamet advises in one of his very bad essays on acting. One moment from Reilly’s solo show that I’ll never forget was his dissection of the contemporary “Hollywood Squares.” There may have been some sour grapes — again, game show appearances hurt his career, and now he was linked with a game show that, in a new version, was terrible — but to him the difference was in the background of the “stars.” Where once they were highly trained and recognizable character actors and comics, people with real accomplishments and real talents, now they were people who had been voted off various “reality” shows. “They say, ‘Hello, stars,'” Reilly complained, “but it should be, ‘Hello, shit.’ These people aren’t stars. They’re shit.'” In print it just looks nasty; on-stage it was funny and sounded true. To Reilly being a celebrity was not being a star, and calling these people stars was a deep insult.
Charles Nelson Reilly was a star, an actual star, someone who had earned every bit of his career. I’ve never seen anyone so completely hold an audience in the palm of his hand by simply talking to them, and for four hours. Dame Edna can do it (and John Leguizamo can’t), but not for four hours.
