By Stone Martindale May 28, 2007, 15:34 GMT
Charles Nelson Reilly was a fixture of American game show television in the sixties and seventies, a regular on the classic "Match Game" with host Gene Rayburn and co-panelist, the husky voiced Brett Somers. Reilly was a Tony-Winning actor, too. He has died at age 76.
Charles Nelson Reilly died on Friday in Los Angeles. He was 76 and lived in Beverly Hills, California. The cause of his death was complications of pneumonia, said his partner, Patrick Hughes, who is his only immediate survivor.
Reilly won a Tony Award in 1962 for his portrayal of Bud Frump in the original Broadway production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
Reilly's final work was an autobiographical one-man show, “Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly,” which featured his memories of a difficult childhood.
Born in the Bronx, New York, Reilly was the only child of a Swedish mother and an Irish father,
In his show, Reilly spoke of the pain of being considered "the oddest member of a decidedly odd family," reported Patrick McGeehan of the New York Times.
McGeehan reports that Reilly remembered when his mother "would often cut him off from speaking by admonishing him to 'save it for the stage.' "
Despite his serious career in theater, his over the top appearances on game shows changed the course of his life. The Times reporter McGeehan writes that in a 2001 interview with The Advocate, the national gay magazine, "Mr. Reilly reflected on the effect those shows had on his professional prospects. 'You can’t do anything else once you do game shows,' he said. 'You have no career.' "
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