John Reilly’s Prime Days
While daytime fans know him for his many soap roles — most recently as PASSIONS’ Alistair, and most notably as GENERAL HOSPITAL’s Sean Donely — John Reilly also boasts an impressive roster of prime-time episodic work under his belt. From GUNSMOKE to NEWHART to HART TO HART, Reilly has worked on some of television’s most beloved classics — and has the stories to tell from them.
“GUNSMOKE was my first role, the second one was on MARY TYLER MOORE and the third one was BOB NEWHART, and then LOU GRANT,” recalls Reilly. Ironically, all of them were produced on the same L.A. lot where PASSIONS is taped today.
Reilly was so well liked by the stars and producers of these prime-time shows that he was even asked to come back more than once, like on HART TO HART. “Bob (Wagner) and I just hit it off. I did three [HART TO HARTs], all because of Bob. I was a bad guy [in the first one] but it didn’t make any difference. It was very exciting to me. And I ended up doing six episodes of GUNSMOKE. I was a good guy, I was a bad guy, I was weasel, I was this, I was that. I started out on the stage as an actor and I played a lot of character roles. I did rep for a while, where I’d be the star of one and then I was the waiter or this or that. It was amazing to me. I always liked it. I didn’t start out as an actor, I was a business man in Chicago and I decided to become an actor. Everything went to, I guess, the ‘plan of life.’ I never planned anything. It just sort of worked itself out.”
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