Charles Nelson Reilly
Charles Nelson Reilly in 2000

I wrote an essay on an appearance by Charles Nelson Reilly on the Tonight Show that was televised many decades ago!

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dikkday48yahoocom/2008/12/charles-nelson-riley-christmas.php

I am watching a Dickens marathon. Now it is on the old movie channel. They already showed my favorite 1951 version. Now they are on the musical of 1970.  Earlier on another channel I watch Patrick Stewart perform his version of Scrooge. Yesterday I saw General Patton's version.

I never tire of this movie, this novel, this play. Its like My Fair Lady/Pygmalion. At any rate as I think of Christmas, I think of Charles Nelson Riley.  And this is why:

I had a lot of trouble liking Charles Nelson Riley.  His effeminate gesturing and sarcastic persona did not impress me, it left me at a loss. I was never a fan of game shows anyway and that was about the only time I ever saw him. Although there was much more to his life than those silly shows.

That was my impression of Charles Nelson Riley, until he made an  appearance on Johnny Carson.

He related a story about his childhood.  He grew up in NYC and his father, like my father, had a taste for liquor.  Every Christmas, his father would buy cheap vodka.  However, he kept a cache of old liquor bottles of a better  ilk.  His dad would then fill these bottles with his vodka and pretend he had a real bar set up.

The Rileys would always go out and get their tree on Christmas Eve and bring it home and decorate it. But father Riley had created a protocol for this decoration that was long and involved and each step was cherished.  During every step, the Riley patriarch would sip from his grand bar until he was more than quite tipsy, so to speak.

The last step and grandest of them all was when good ole Dad would put the finishing touch on the masterpiece.    It was always Midnight when Dad would crown the tree with the magnificent star. And every time this happened, the tree would fall over.  Every single Christmas.

When Charles was older Dad announced that it was time to follow the maxim of Horace Greeley and everybody packed up the old car and they drove to California.  The move was made during the holidays and they reached California on Christmas Eve.  As they reached the famous intersection of Hollywood & Vine, Charles looked up to see one of the most magnificent Christmas Trees he had ever seen. Right at the intersection.

And just as they stopped at the traffic light, at midnight on Christmas Eve, a wind came up and that tree fell over, right onto the street.

My poor alcoholic father could not stand a tree up to sell his soul.  Of course he refused to go to a hardware store and purchase a good tree stand for four or five dollars. Instead he used some used cup with a steak in it that I assume he got from his mother's garbage can.

The tree was always purchased a week or more before Christmas so that it had an opportunity to fall over at least three times.  At that point, Dad was so mad he would pound some nails in the corner walls and hold up the tree with string. Thus it was every Christmas.

After that, I always loved and cherished Charles Nelson Riley.

Can you believe that I found this on Google, at TPMCafe, with all the comments. Hahahahahahah

I did not think that was possible.

Well it turns out that he had his own Broadway Play that was turned into a movie!

And it was written by him with help by a Paul Linke, and I just found it at Netflix! Ha

I have to confess that as an Irish Catholic I had all of these biases against THE GAYS! The prejudice came from my father, my Church and my peers!

They were just homosexuals in the old days of course, otherwise how could the Good Ole US of A have dropped an atomic bomb with a plane named the Enola Gay?

The Play or Movie was entitled: The_Life_of_Reilly!

This play is remarkable! Just remarkable!

It takes you back to the Mark Twain portrayal by Hal Holbrook

As I noted in Christmas of '08 (which I thought would have been a year or two later), Charles Nelson Reilly was much more than some idiot panelist on a game show that gave away hundred dollar bills based upon...idiocy!

Charles (who died at the age of 76 in 2007) talks about both his parents.

Mommy would scream from her third floor apartment, get the hell away from my kid you Kike!

But Dad, Dad was like my Dad.

His dad had to go away so that experts could cure his nervous breakdown!

As I stated in my first blog, there were already abundant similarities between Reilly's dad and my dad.

But I had no idea that his dad had a 'nervous breakdown' just like mine. And I could not help but assume the 'breakdown' had a lot to do with booze before all of these 12-step programs and rehabilitation clinics had been invented.

As a star of the stage, Mr. Reilly was called to a TV casting call. This he listed as occurring in 1950.

He was turned down for some TV role.

The interviewer told Charles Nelson:

QUEERS CANNOT BE PUT ON TV!

Charles would have been 19 at the time, 19 years older than me.

Charles did just fine, in spite of bias and prejudice.

He had a good life.

I hope that I could have another 15 years or so on this planet.

There were times I did not feel for another month, let alone years.

Oh before I go.

As I listen to this movie, Charles Nelson Reilly tells the story he told of on the Johnny Carson Show.

A fun movie.

Charles died in 2007.

But unlike plays, movies last forever!

You gotta see:

THE LIFE OF REILLY!

A wonderful experience.

My Dad, as racist and prejudiced as he was would tell me every single day of his life with me that to judge you must:

Walk a mile in the other guy's shoes.

the end

Well almost the end, because I keep thinking of this Lyle Lovett tune: