Friday, December 10, 2010

Charles Nelson Reilly, the Belle of Amherst

Today is Emily Dickinson's birthday; she would be turning 180 years old.

How I love each morning as I drive to work to see the stately Dickinson Homestead, and the window behind which Emily privately wrote her poems.

Thanks to Emily, the late Charles Nelson Reilly lit his pipe in my parents' living room one autumn evening in 1980.  Reilly and Julie Harris were in town for the Emily Dickinson Sesquicentennial - her 150th birthday.
"Hoodoo" on S&M Krofft's Lidsville
Somers' foil, Rayburn's bain on Match Game











CNR and Emily Dickinson?  The campy character had clowned around on TV sit-coms, kids' shows, game shows & commercials, in film and on stage, yet he emerged as a serious stage director whose crowning achievement I think - among many - was to direct Ms. Harris in The Belle Of Amherst.
Enchanting actress, dapper director: Julie Harris & Charles Nelson Reilly convey the world and art of Emily Dickinson in The Belle Of Amherst
Having established this high-water mark in 1976, the pair were naturals for the first-ever convocation of the Emily Dickinson International Society when it formed in 1980.  My father was the organizer and keynote speaker for this 3-day extravaganza, and hosted a raucous opening night gathering in our Amherst home.  Alas, I wish I'd been there, but I was an enterprising college grad making his way in the world and had to read James Atlas' coverage of the proceedings on page 1 of the New York Times.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Numerous raves about CNR’s direction of TBOA have been given by Brett Somers & Gene Rayburn in recently aired reruns of Match Game 76. If only there was videotape of what surely was an, “absolutely thrilling, marvellous evening on the theatre,” as Gene said of Ms. Harris’ one-woman tour de force performance!

Unknown said...

Numerous raves about CNR’s direction of TBOA have been given by Brett Somers & Gene Rayburn in recently aired reruns of Match Game 76. If only there was videotape of what surely was an, “absolutely thrilling, marvellous evening on the theatre,” as Gene said of Ms. Harris’ one-woman tour de force performance!

Unknown said...

Numerous raves about CNR’s direction of TBOA have been given by Brett Somers & Gene Rayburn in recently aired reruns of Match Game 76. If only there was videotape of what surely was an, “absolutely thrilling, marvellous evening on the theatre,” as Gene said of Ms. Harris’ one-woman tour de force performance!