And Then He Put His Hand In The [Blank]

Well, it appears to be the year we start losing Game Show Panelists.

They don't do game shows like they used to - The Price Is Right was a real category killer in daytime, and Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune changed the nighttime landscape, and everybody thinks celebrity gossip is what sells these days (though I get the sense that the whole gossip industry is due for a shakeup soon; too many outlets, too few real stars).

But when I was a kid was the last gasp of the "celebrity" panel show.  To Tell The Truth, Match Game, Hollywood Squares (and Jim would kill me - I almost forgot Password)... these were the remains of a vibrant industry that started in the fifties, and included What's My Line and I've Got A Secret.  In those olden days, the celebrities were just that - celebrated people with a bit of class.  By the seventies, they were ... well who knew who they were.  Outside of the shows, I'd never heard of Kitty Carlisle, Peggy Cass, Lola Falana, Nipsey Russell, Brett Sommers, Paul Lynde... and many more.  Some were Vegas (Charo!), some were theater vets with time on their hands, but they all seemed to know each other, and came off as classy and witty (scripted banter and some bugle beads can take you a long way.  Just ask Cher).  

Which is to say I will miss Charles Nelson Reilly.

More than Paul Lynde, Charles was undiluted open gayness on TV - witty, well dressed, someone who implied "keep up" with everything he said (with a wink) on Match Game. Gene Rayburn and others gave scathing comments years later about how desperately they had to try to turn a largely dumb game format - match the fill in the blank word with the celebrities - by basically making the whole subtext sex. And there Charles was on the dumbest show, making it seem classy.

So much of who I am - so much I discovered of what gay men my age saw as well - was built on seeing Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynde; they brought a gay persona into our homes under cover of humor, and let us know what we could get away with, and how. My gay life was built on wanting to be a New Yorker, on devouring old movies and bios of the old stars, and trying to learn to be as witty as Charles and Paul (which I later figured out, was also about trying to emulate Noel Coward and Cole Porter).  It's easy to dismiss all of this as "what it takes to be queeny", but it wasn't that simple.  You work with what you had, and you learned more along the way. I'm not the queen I once was, but I think my wit has only gotten sharper.  Practice, practice, practice.

Charles Nelson Reilly was, in actuality, a talented actor, teacher and director, who earned a Tony nomination directing Julie Harris in The Gin Game (with Charles Durning; he also directed Harris in the original production of The Belle of Amherst). He lived with his lover until he died, and never pretended not to be who he was, even to the detriment, to some degree, of his career. He may not represent the "gay pride" that sells magazines these days, but I couldn't have survived without his example.  May he rest in peace.

Comments

[jinbaltimore]

yes, this one saddened me too...I also remember him as the villain in Lidsville, another Sid and Marty Kroft (HR Puff n' Stuff)creation.

[jinbaltimore]

but how did it come out? did they accept "finishing school" in the end?

[RW]

My ambivalent thoughts --

There is no such thing as gay culture, and probably no such thing as a gay community, but there does seem to be a rich tradition of irony and cryptic expression associated with being gay in America.
I have an impression -- it might be true, or it might be a hopelessly naive indulgence of the dominant narrative. I am going to share it, because their might be something to it:
I think that there are places, and times, and contexts, where gay people are/were not out, when effeminancy was better tolerated among men. I think there are contexts where closeted gay folks in public life -- and the general taboo against public discussion of homosexuality -- provide or provided cover for the effeminant heterosexual. Or in other words, the taboo created an assumption that everyone was straight. For those of us who are straight, but don't always fit the stereotype, there might have been occasions when this was more comfortable.
Of course, this is a minor minor cost to all that has been achieved since stonewall. But it is a reminder that every strategy of resistance against gender, and CNR was, like it or not, resisting gender, has something to teach.

[RW]

PS
That show was completely fucking baffling. I have no idea what the hell was going on. That was on the air???

[Jennifer]

And (among other things) Paul Lynde was Samantha Stevens "Uncle Arthur" on Bewitched.