For Gaz (and all "Match game" fans): a docu about... Charles Nelson Reilly! Coming later this year to a DVD player near you. This from hollywood-elsewhere.com:
"Charles Nelson Reilly: three words that, provided you know who he is, cause an instant reaction. Isn't he that funny guy from "The Match Game"? Isn't he that guy from "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir"? "Isn't he that funny guy from TV"?
All of the above are accurate, but they don't nearly crack the surface of this deeply complicated, fascinating figure of American cinema, stage, and art. To say he's a cultural icon is an understatement.
People can poke fun or impersonate him all they want in an effort to trivialize him, but his resume and life story beg to differ. For some time starting in 1999, Reilly performed a one-man, three hour plus show about the story of his life. He toured the country, from performance halls to universities, telling stories with tragic and surprising content.
Reilly took over the Uta Hagen acting program. He nearly died in a circus fire as a child. He was told by the President of NBC that "we don't put queers on TV" (boy was he wrong). For years, and even still today, he's brushed off as a schtick comedian. In the film, he performs Hamlet at over 70 better than many men of any age I've seen deliver the same speech.
This "concert doc" captures an edited-down, 90 minutes or so of absolutely riveting performance from one of the most under-appreciated actors of his or any generation of the 20th century."
