Charles Nelson Reilly died on May 25, 2007 at the age of 76.
As a kid growing up in the 1970’s my exposure to Mr Reilly was by way of the Sid & Marty Kroft show “Lidsville”, in which he played the evil magician Hoodoo. I loved that show.
I later saw him in reruns of the TV show “The Ghost and Mrs Muir”. I remember him most, though, from watching the game show “Match Game” which to
this day remains my favorite game show. Although I was young when it was on, like 9-13 when I watched it regularly with my grandmother who used to laugh at the naughty (for the time) innuendos and I would in-turn laugh as though I “got it” at the age of 10. To this day I can watch re-runs of Match Game on the GameShow Network and I enjoy them as much now as I remember I did way back then.
Charles Nelson Reilly began his career on Broadway, and soon became a fixture on “The Tonight Show” and “The Dean Martin Show”. He was also on “The Hollywood Squares” in the mid- 80’s. In the 90’s, he appeared in such TV shows as “Evening Shade” (with Burt Reynolds), “B.L. Stryker” (also with Burt Reynolds), and as Jose Chung in a couple of “X-Files” episodes, and this character crossed over the “Millenium” show also for one episode. He also did some voice work for animated movies such as “All Dogs Go To Heaven” and “Rock a Doodle”, and for the TV series “Sponge Bob Square Pants”.
He was a very funny man. I’ll miss Charles Nelson Reilly, but as long as Game Show network runs past episodes of “Match Game”, he’ll always be here to make me laugh.
