Here’s What Happened to the ‘Match Game’ Celebrity Panelists Before, During and After the Show

Ashley detailed that there were really two things that made the show the success it was. “One, the chemistry between the panelists,” he said, “who, because of the way they were grouped together on the panel, could laugh, joke with Gene, and behave like they were at a house party, or (as with Brett and Charles) bicker like an old married couple, which brought hilarity to the proceedings.

“And two,” he continued, “the now ‘racier’ fill-in-the-blank questions written by MAD magazine writer Dick DeBartolo (and later other writers, including Elliot Feldman, R. Patrick Neary, and several others) brought a ‘late-night’ Johnny Carson sensibility to daytime television (Match Game may well have introduced euphemisms and words like ‘tinkle’ and ‘boobs’ to TV). Gene Rayburn once said if you’re ever stumped for an answer on the show, answer with either ‘boobs, booze, or Howard Cosell’ and the chances are you’d match.”

Brett Somers

She was born Audrey Dawn Johnson on July 11, 1924 in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. When she turned 18, she moved to New York City determined to become an actress. She changed her name legally to Brett Sommers, Brett after a character from Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Somers from her mother’s maiden name.

Although details aren’t clear, some time after moving to New York she met and married Robert Klein (not the comedian), with whom she had daughter Leslie. She went on to marry actor Jack Klugman (The Odd Couple, Quincy, M.D.) in 1953, the two of them having sons Adam and David before their divorce in 1977.

As an actress, Brett got her start (as so many did) in anthology television productions, like Kraft Television Theatre, Playhouse 90 and Robert Montgomery Presents. She starred in such stage shows as Maybe Tuesday, Happy Ending, The Seven Year Itch and, with Klugman, The Country Girl. On TV there were many guest star appearances, most notably on her then-husband’s The Odd Couple as Oscar Madison’s ex-wife, Blanche. In 1973 she played Gertie, secretary to the title character in the rebooted Perry Mason. Her greatest claim to fame, though, was on Match Game.

Pointed out Ashley, “Match Game in a sense created its own celebrities. Brett actually had an extensive career in theatre and television throughout the fifties and sixties, and was in fact a lifetime member of The Actor’s Studio in New York. But it was Match Game that made her literally a household name. And while Richard Dawson was the most cerebral panelist and the best at the game, people loved Brett’s audacity. She said what she thought, had a forceful personality, but had a great sense of humor, and didn’t mind being the butt of a joke. And in real life she was exactly what you saw onscreen, a funny, down-to-earth person.”

She would continue to act and even performed in her own cabaret show, An Evening with Brett Somers. According to her son, Adam, Brett died on September 15, 2007 as a result of stomach and colon cancer at the age of 83.

Charles Nelson Reilly

Born January 13, 1931 in the Bronx, New York, his first attraction to show business came when he was a kid and used to create his own puppet theater. At the age of 13, he was a survivor of the horrific Hartford, Connecticut circus fire of 1944 that took the lives of 167 people, but was so emotionally scarring to him that he reportedly found it difficult to attend the theater or immerse himself in large crowds. He nonetheless was drawn to the idea of becoming an opera singer and joined the Hartt School of Music as a voice major, but ultimately gave it up feeling he didn’t have the necessary natural ability as a singer.

He enjoyed great success on stage throughout the 1960s in Broadway and Off Broadway productions, including Bye Bye Birdie (a standby for Dick Van Dyke), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (for which he won a 1962 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a musical) and Hello, Dolly!

In the mid 1960s he started appearing on television game and variety shows, then scoring a series regular role as Claymore Gregg on the televisions series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. He was a regular on The Dean Martin Show and appeared on such shows as McMillan & Wife, The Patty Duke Show, Here’s Lucy and Love, American Style. Then there was Match Game.

“Like Brett Somers,” detailed Ashley, “Charles became a household name because of the show, but he was already an award-winning actor, director, and acting teacher (his students included Bette Midler Liza Minelli and Lily Tomlin). His one-man-show, Save It for The Stage: The Life of Reilly, was released on DVD several years back and it showcases his brilliance. Charles was a great storyteller, which is why he was invited on to Carson’s The Tonight Show nearly a hundred times.

“He and Brett,” Ashley continued, “had such great chemistry, people often wondered if they were married in real life. I got to know both of them well while researching my book on Match Game, and told Brett once she and Charles should do a bus-and-truck revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She just laughed and said, ‘Oh, Ashley, I could never have learned those lines!’”

Charles continued acting, appearing in movies and TV shows (including The X-files and The Drew Carey Show). He also provided his voice for animated TV shows and features, and spent much of his time teaching acting classes. He died from complications of pneumonia on May 25, 2007.

Richard Dawson

He started off life with the name Colin Lionel Emm on November 20, 1932 in Gosport, Hampshire, England. He ran away from home at the age of 14 to join the British Merchant Navy, where he actually pursued a career onboard of boxing, making about $15,000 from various matches. Leaving the Navy, he started pursuing a career in comedy under the name Dickie Dawson. When he reached adulthood, he legally changed it to Richard Dawson.

In 1963 he made his American television debut on The Jack Benny Program, followed by an appearance on The Dick Van Dyke Show, the movies King Rat and Munster Go Home! and The Devil’s Brigade. In between he starred (from 1965 to 1971) in the World War II TV sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, alongside Bob Crane. When he was done with Hogan’s, he became a part of the cast of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Significantly, Match Game was next.

“Richard was handsome, charming, the best at the game, and the go-to for contestants out to win the Supermatch end game,” said Ashley. “He had the uncanny ability to read the contestants, knowing when to answer with wit or answer like a nitwit.  In 1976, Richard began hosting Family Feud, an immediate hit, and did double-duty working both games shows. But after five years on the panel, Richard got tired of Match Game. The introduction of the Star Wheel, in which contestants spun the wheel to let fate decide which celebrity they would play with, seemed like a slight to Richard. He took it personally, and during his last appearances on the show he seemed withdrawn and disinterested. He asked to be let out of his contract, the producers complied and that was that.”

Ashley added, “For awhile, McLean Stevenson was being groomed to take over Richard’s spot. Bill Daily, too. But Richard’s departure left a hole in the fabric of the show. This, coupled with various timeslot changes eventually did the show in.”

He hosted Family Feud and and off until 1995, pretty much retiring after that. In between there were appearances on TV and in films, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, The Running Man.

In his personal life, Richard was married to Diana Dors from 1959 to 1967, and then Gretechen Johnson from 1991 until his death. He has three children. He died at the age of 79 of esophageal cancer on June 2, 2012.

Betty White

The TV legend! Born January 17, 1922 in Oak Park, Illinois, she’s had a television career of more than 80 years, which is more than any other actor or actress can claim. She has also been a part of so many series as a regular since almost the advent of the medium: Life with Elizabeth (1953 to 1955), Date With the Angels (1957 to 1958), The Mary Tayler Moore Show (1973 to 1977), The Betty White Show (1977 to 1978), Mama’s Family (1983 to 1984, 1986), The Golden Girls (1985 to 1992), The Golden Palace (1992 to 1993), Bob (1993), Maybe This Time (1995), Ladies Man (1999), Boston Legal (2005 to 2008), The Bold and the Beautiful (23 episodes between 2006 and 2009) and Hot in Cleveland (2010 to 2015). How’s that (not even including the many game shows she was a part of) for a Classic TV legacy?

Reflected Ashley, “I call Betty ‘The Patron Saint of Game Show contestants,’ because she’s been good luck for so many of them, and she’s a clever game player (being married to Password host Allen Ludden helped). She appeared on the NBC version of Match Game many times, and then on the CBS version many more times. Everyone loved Betty: sharp as a tack, and while she and Brett had a mock feud, trading barbs on the panel that were worthy of a Dynasty-era catfight (‘I don’t know,’ Betty told me, ‘because I’ve never seen Dynasty.’), backstage, she and Brett shared a dressing room and as Match Game producer Ira Skutch told me, ‘They were the best of friends.’

“One high point on the show: when the sound man cued the traditional ‘stripper’ music and Betty performed a mock striptease (she did this on two separate occasions on the show). Another, when she corrected Gene Rayburn on some bit of business during one round, he handed her the microphone and cards and sat on the panel while she took up hosting duties (‘It’s not as easy as it looks!’ she said afterward.).”

Betty’s been married three times: to Dick Barker in 1945 (that’s it), Lane Allen from 1947 to 1949 and to the true love of her life, Allen Ludden (best known as the host of Password), from 1963 to his death in 1981. Betty is still going strong at the age of 98.

Fannie Flagg

The actress, comedian and author was born Patricia Neal September 21, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama. Besides appearing on many game shows, as a writer she worked on Candid Camera and wrote a number of books, including the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, which was adapted into the 1991 movie Fried Green Tomatoes. She’s made many guest star appearances on different TV shows, but her stint on Match Game is undoubtedly the thing she is most remembered for.

“Fannie, Joyce Bulifant and Bill Daily all had one thing in common: all three had dyslexia,” Ashley revealed. “I asked Fannie if this caused her any real problems on the show — she once wrote furneal on an answer card, because she couldn’t spell funeral — and she told me, ‘No, my misspellings were part of the joke.’ And of course, as the resident sex symbol, Fannie became known for wearing her famous t-shirts (most famous was the one with two fried eggs on the chest) which fans kept sending her to wear on the show, and which she later donated to charity fundraisers.”

Nipsey Russell

Julius “Nipsey” Russell was born September 15, 1918 in Atlanta, Georgia. During World War II he served as a medic in the United States Army, entering as a private and leaving in 1945 as a second lieutenant. In the 1940s he got his start entertaining patrons as a carhop at The Varsity, an Atlanta drive-in. He the 1950s he began performing a comedy act in nightclubs, which is where he was discovered. In 1957 he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, which was followed by Jack Paar’s The Tonight Show, and he had a supporting role in the Fred Gwynne sitcom Car 54, Where Are You?.

In 1970 he co-starred in a TV adaptation of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, which was followed by regular appearances on The Dean Martin Show and The Dean Martin Comedy World. In between these years he was a panelist on a number of game shows and really had a showcase on Match Game — especially for the self-written poems he would recite.

Shared Ashley, “Nipsey had appeared on both the NBC and later CBS versions of the show, and in fact had a long association with Goodson-Todman game shows, over the years hosting several game show pilots as well as a few that were picked up. His skill at creating limericks on the spot earned him the title of ‘Poet Laureate of Television.’”

In his later years, Nipsey (who starred as the Tin Man in the movie version of The Wiz) gained a lot of younger fans by frequently appearing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Suffering from cancer, he died in 2005 at the age of 87.

In writing his book and researching the show and its performers, a few more names come to mind for Ashley. Jo Ann Pflug appeared in the pilot of Match Game ’73 and popped in from time to time in the early years of the show, a beautiful brunette fresh from guest shots on Love, American Style and The Love Boat. Fun fact: she was also married to game show host Chuck Woolery!

“Marcia Wallace [Carol Kester from The Bob Newhart Show] did a guest shot on the Match Game panel and was so good they kept asking her back. And she and Brett Somers became best friends. Years later when Brett and Charles appeared in a special ‘game show themed’ week of episodes of The New Hollywood Squares in 2002, they went out after the taping along with original Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall to celebrate Marcia’s birthday. More than 30 years later and they were all still very close.”

Marcia died on October 25, 2013 at the age of 70, suffering from breast cancer, pneumonia and sepsis.

And then there was the master of ceremonies, Gene Rayburn, who genuinely seemed to enjoy his interactions with the stars. Laughed Ashley, “I’ll quote the late, great Marcia Wallace on Gene: ‘There was nobody better, in my opinion. Nobody better. Gene Rayburn was the sweetest and the best straight man and I say this as a woman who loved Peter [Marshall, host of Hollywood Squares, which Marcia also appeared on.] … He had an unbelievable instinct for dealing with celebrities, contestants, and he made everybody look good.’”