Q:Build a movie plot around this: On what program did Reilly have hundreds of guest appearances on? The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
A:
The film begins with Reilly recounting his childhood and his parents in New York City and Connecticut. We meet his familyan institutionalized father, a racist, baseball bat-wielding mother, and a lobotomized aunt, amongst others. "Eugene O'Neill would never get near this family," Reilly declares.Prior to being put into an institution, Reilly's father, a Paramount Pictures poster artist and illustrator, was offered the chance to go into business with another illustrator with the intention of making their first animated film in color together. The catch was simply that the senior Mr. Reilly would have to move himself and his family to California. Perhaps a defining moment in young Reilly's life, his father asked his mother her thoughts and she unceremoniously rejected the possibility. The other illustrator went west without the senior Mr. Reilly as a partner. That other illustrator was named Walt Disney.After this missed opportunity, Reilly's father began drinking heavily and eventually had a nervous breakdown. Upon being institutionalized, the family was forced to move out of the Bronx up to Connecticut to live with Mrs. Reilly's family.When Reilly turned eighteen, he moved to New York City. "If you wanted to be an actor in those days," he explains, "You did something that's really unheard of today you studied." Young and hungry (literally), Reilly managed to find an acting class at New School. Its rather liberal open door policy allowed aspiring actors admission even if they didn't have the money to pay.Reilly's class was taught by a young, award-winning, soon-to-be-legendary actress, Uta Hagen. In the class were such future stars and notables as Steve McQueen, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards, Geraldine Page and Gene Hackman. It was a group of future Academy Award, Tony Award and Emmy Award winners, and, as Charles explains, "We wanted to go on the stage, none of us had any money, and this entire list couldn't act for shit."It was about this time when a...