The Life of Reilly

Those who played along at home with Match Game will fondly recall Charles Nelson Reilly, the small screen’s swishiest stealth weapon. Performing his one-man show for the camera in 2004, CNR (who died last May) boasts of acting classes with Uta Hagen and his 90-plus appearances on The Tonight Show—neither accomplishment, however, matches the significance of Reilly’s getting the lead in the fourth-grade production of Columbus the Man at P.S. 53. Much of the monologue is shouted; HARTFORD!, we learn, is where he and his mother relocated after his father’s nervous breakdown. Maybe the volume wouldn’t grate so much if Reilly were still wearing his captain’s hat and cravat.