I WILL MISS YOU MORE THAN EVEN BRETT SOMERS WILL

A tribute to Charles Nelson Reilly

When I was a kid growing up in an immigrant Italian family in the Bronx, a ham and cheese sandwich was imported prosciutto and fresh mozzarella on fresh baked Italian bread. Whenever I wanted a ham and cheese sandwich, that's what I got. And with my grandmother, I usually didn't even have to ask for it before it was given to me. I had no idea that 25 years later, I would be paying top dollar for something barely even approaching that at a special gourmet import delicatessen I have to drive miles out of my way to get to. In fact, at the time, I wanted processed Oscar Mayer ham and Kraft American cheese food slices like all the other kids had. I spent my entire childhood pathetically unaware of the fact that I was given the finest of aged, imported ham and freshly made, often still warm, oozing buffalo milk mozzarella and just what the value and richness of that was. It was so ordinary to me, I had no idea how to truly appreciate it and just how special it was. It was no big deal to have it. It was handed to me whenever I felt like it.

That was Charles Nelson Reilly. He was top shelf; he was gourmet. And most of us had no idea what we were getting.

I am so sorry to see Charles Nelson Reilly pass without the tremendous recognition he deserved in life. Not surprised, but still quite a bit sorry about it. He was so ubiquitous and was masterful in such unlikely ways, he became an ordinary part of my generation's everyday life on TV all the time. I was actually moved by his passing in a way that doesn't seem appropriate, but makes complete sense to me. He was such a big part of the comic pantheon of my impressionable youth that made me discover comedy with such a passion. I want to give the man his props here if nowhere else. He was so vastly underrated in comedy and as an artist in general.

It's easy to think of Charles Nelson Reilly as nothing more than a fluffy piece of pop culture trivia and as a small, kitschy, unspectacular and insignificant detail of an era that is long gone. He won't get a cover story on any magazine. There won't be any Kennedy Center honors for him. He will forever remain a footnote in the world of comedy. We forget or never even realized that he doled his huge gifts out anywhere and everywhere he could as if it was nothing in the least bit special. And generally, the contexts in which those gifts were so freely and lovingly given were so unremarkable and ordinary, we couldn't possibly have known how great his gifts were. In just being there all the time, and always being hilariously odd and the true unique character he was, he ended up being taken for granted for his whole career and perhaps life. In some strange way, I suppose that is a feat in itself. I choose to look at that melancholic fact counter-intuitively: It's a fitting and unique tribute for such a unique talent. To be so good so damned consistently and to be such a part of everyday, ordinary life as to be unnoticed as being so special is actually something to marvel at. It demonstrates, I suppose, a singular and genuine affection for him and, more importantly, an unstated appreciation for his particular brilliance.

He was that goofy uncle that was around at all the big family gatherings when you were a kid but didn't see much anymore once you grew up and never really thought about much til you heard he died. Warm, kind, affectionate memories of him flood me. I myself would be happy to die leaving that behind if nothing else.

For chrissakes, the goofy old flamer turned game shows into a genuine comic art form. And in his own gentle way, he was actually quite subversive in that dull mainstream daytime tv context. Sometimes not even subtly so - but always gently so. He made me laugh as much and as hard as anybody else has in my life - and more consistently and unexpectedly and unpredictably than most. He rode that beautiful razor's edge of being a goofball clown and a real, sincere, genuine human being at the same time. He played by no rules, but we never even noticed that about him. He had no agenda. He just 'was'. And what he 'was' was hilarious.

I didn't quite realize it at the time that he was on tv and a part of my daily life for just about my entire childhood, but now that I have a sense of just what comedy means to me and what it takes to be a true artist in comedy, I realize that he was, to me, simply beautiful.

I had lunch with him a few times in his later, less-than-healthy years and I got sick from laughing so hard every time in his presence. He was just hilarious without even trying. As fast and sharp and surprising as Groucho or Johnny were at their best - among the fastest and sharpest of my ken - and even then his craft, his gift and his remarkable skill were evident in every spontaneous, genuine moment.

And since I know you're picturing and hearing him as you read this, which is yet another testament to his gifts, I can tell you from my own all-too-little personal and cherished time in his company that even if that goofy, faggy laugh of his - so immediately recognizable when anyone imitated him with even the poorest of accuracy - even if it was a 'showbiz' hook or some gimmick he cooked up early in his career, he owned it to such a degree that it never felt like it when it happened in private. The first time I was fortunate enough to meet him was when I noticed him eating at a nearby table in a nondescript diner. I went up to him to tell him how excited I was to meet him and to thank him for being him, and he graciously and flamboyantly invited me to join him. As if I actually knew him from all the time I spent in his broadcast presence, we shared a couple of hours, some lunch and lots of laughs. It was, of course, an unfair exchange - I could offer him only a few meager laughs as he dispensed his as John D. Rockefeller did dimes. But the first time I was lucky enough to hear him laugh, just for me, live and in person, I was reminded of the classic Robert Klein bit about meeting an icon from his childhood. Klein talked about meeting and introducing himself to the great Chuck Berry with a simple, "Hello, I'm Robert Klein." Berry suddenly shoots his hand out, grips Klein's, pumps it in rhythm and shouts as only Chuck Berry can, "RIGHT (beat) ONNNN!!" Klein's sumnation of that whole lightning in a bottle moment is, simply: "It turns out... He's REALLY Chuck Berry."

Charles Nelson Reilly was REALLY Charles Nelson Reilly. Like the equally stunning and original Phyllis Diller, he really does laugh like that. He didn't wear those goofy, oversized, retired-old-lady-schoolteacher-moved-to-Florida eyeglasses for effect. They really were his eye glasses. They weren't wardrobe. They weren't a statement. He really wore them. With no irony whatsoever.

I myself don't believe that laugh of Reilly's was ever calculated. But I secretly hope it was, because it would only serves to cement my appreciation for the artist he was. I prefer to think it was at one point completely calculated. It would then be a stunning display of commitment and skill and artistry. If it was calculated at some point, it became genuine. And that says a lot.

To me, that little bit of silliness rests profoundly in the context of art in which I believe he deserves to be discussed. I know it's rather ridiculous to look at that kind of thing with the critical and analytical eye I turn on it here, and it's suspect to speak of it importantly as having anything to do with art or brilliance. To place it in that context belies the unpretentiousness of what he did that makes him worthy of the discussion in the first place. To that I can only quote Larry Miller about comedians focusing in on that kind of silly, seemingly insignificant detail: "We're dancing on the head of a pin here, but... well... that's what we do." Indulge me that as I mourn his passing.

As brash and over-the-top as he was, he was graceful and elegant. And just never - NEVER - not funny. Even in those rare moments that I didn't laugh hard and loud with him on the tube, I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear watching him. He is among those of a rare ilk, like Phyllis Diller and Tim Conway - comic artists who cross some line where nothing else they did was as significant as the simple fact that they were there - being who they are and giving it all so generously and so free of anything but the love of being able to do what they do as best they can and to be accepted and hopefully appreciated for it. Pure talent and joy given for no other reason than that it's all they have to give. Every time out of the gate. No drama, no pretentiousness, no agenda. Ever.

My friend Jackie Green, a Broadway publicist with her own great gifts in that realm, had the good fortune of doing publicity for Larry Shue's The Nerd, a play Charles Nelson Reilly was directing on Broadway some years ago. I know… you had no idea the goofball from The Match Game directed theater on Broadway. Well, he did, and he did it brilliantly. He handled the light comedy of The Nerd so skillfully and with such comic precision and attention to detail that, while the play is slight to say the least, it was one of the most enjoyable nights I have spent in a theater. There was not a single comic beat missed in a play full of terrific comic beats. The director fully realized every possible one of them, and then some. Just when you thought all the juice was squeezed out of a possible moment and it just had to be time to move on, Reilly was able to give it one more squeeze - and astonish you with how much funnier it could be than you ever could have thought possible. With Reilly at the helm, a simple, pure laugh was treated as pure and worthy art from the top down, in that very Charles Nelson Reilly way of being artful with no pretense or affect whatsoever. He elevated it from a really funny show to a great night of theater.

"I remember getting in the car with him to go to ABC (for some promo spot)," remembers Jackie Green. "He gestured with his hand, and in his uniquely
sibilant way said 'CBS, Barbara - and floor it!!'

"I said 'Charles, my name is not Barbara, and we're going to ABC.'

He said, "I know. I just liked the way it sounded.'"

Can't you just picture that exchange? I bet in our mind's eye, each of us have exactly the same timing and inflection and gesticulation and look on his face coming from him in that moment. And I bet each of us is on the money. That's just plain remarkable.

For years we watched him thrust his greatness effortlessly upon us on such pedestrian fare as gameshows and daytime talk shows, and though I was never lucky enough to see him in situ there, I have no doubt he displayed his particular genius even at The Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater in Jupiter, Florida. Burt was smart and funny enough himself to embrace Reilly as a genuine muse and give him an outlet to do onstage whatever he wanted to, before people who couldn't care less about what I care about, but who surely loved every moment of it. Yet, he will never get any 'serious' recognition for anything he ever did there. And he did a lot.

So while there won't be a cover story on Charles Nelson Reilly anywhere, I say he deserves one.

And don't even get me started on Brett Somers. She doesn't even have a page on Wikipedia.

PAUL PROVENZA
05/28/07

Paul Provenza is an actor, writer and comedian. In 2005, he directed The Aristocrats. And he sends along word that Somers does indeed have a Wikipedia page.