Charles Nelson Reilly Quotes

In the long period of time when I did talk shows and game shows, a whole new generation of people came along who thought of me as that, and not as a theater person.

Sometimes people offer you plays, they offer you parts, but they only offer it because I'm famous.

It's bad enough that I'm an actress that wants to be recognized as an actress. Instead, I am known for doing game shows.

It's sort of the mixed blessing of being on television for so long in one thing; sometimes that backfires, in that you're not able to continue on.

Once you became associated with a children's show, you're finished.

I'm either offered window-dressing parts in large movies or little art films no one ever sees. People think the movies I end up doing are my real choices. I do the best things I'm offered.

I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today, but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.

I'm in show business, and we have a long history here of making movies about law enforcement officers. If you're my age, and you're male, and you're trying to get work, you're going to run into those roles as opposed to having a long run of playing dancers.

I ended up in TV because I have no ability to do anything else. I have an agent who tells me where I have to be when.

Some people in the industry feel TV actors can't do anything else.

Marissa is one of the fan favorites of 'Comedy Bang! Bang!' for everyone throughout the years.

I get the gold-digger part six times weekly. I can play those women into the ground, but I don't want someone telling me that's all I can do.

When you get lucky, as I did getting to work on a series of amazing films, one of the drawbacks career-wise is that the image of you at 10 or 12 or whatever is burned into people's minds for a long time.

The whole MS stuff put the kibosh on my career. And I sort of let it go. I even have a friend who went to CBS and said, 'I want Teri Garr to be in this series,' and the head of the network said, 'Oh no, she's got MS.'

When my mother was young, only two professions were open to women ; teaching and nursing. She chose nursing, but the teaching profession was full of talented women like her, confined there in part because they had few career options.

Hopefully, I've established a career, but you can be a big sensation one day, and the next day everyone's going, 'Who? ... Who?'

People get to know you better on the small screen, be it while judging or hosting a show.

If you were in Clint Eastwood movies, you were in the Clint Eastwood movie business. You weren't in the movie business. You weren't part of Hollywood. This became clear early on; people stopped calling. They automatically assumed I was working exclusively with Clint.

If I get too type-cast, that's the worst possible scenario.

It's not fun for an actor to be pigeonholed in any way.

It's like, 'Oh, great, drag queens can excel!' - but then the ceiling is so low. You're only allowed on the first floor; you're not allowed to go play with the big boys upstairs. Even RuPaul, who's a massive success, has been limited to where her music career can take her.

I'm the TV girl.

In the industry, once people see you in a certain mold, you start getting offered only those kind of roles.

Unfortunately, I was branded as a glamour actress and was forced to do only glamour roles.

I was talking to a TV bigwig, and he said, 'Nobody under 35 knows who Sammy Davis is.' Well, you'll hear angry denials of that from younger people.