Queer as folk

Paul Lynde never officially came out -- but the "Hollywood Squares" star was the first TV personality to bring gay humor to the masses.

By Mike Sacks

Aug 23, 2005 | What took so long? In an age where celebrity biographies and memoirs outnumber actual celebrities, when even the life and career of Erik Estrada are deemed worthy of a 208-page meditation (opening line: "Any man's beginning reaches back past his point of origin ... to the deepest roots of his heritage"), how is it possible that the strange, sad life of legendary gay comic actor Paul Lynde ("Hollywood Squares," "Bewitched," "The Munsters," and an untold number of variety shows) has not already been observed, analyzed and dissected through a rainbow-tinted lens?

Indeed, over the course of a 27-year career that was filled with many more downs than ups, Lynde did perhaps more than any other single celebrity to open America's minds and hearts to the notion of a gay man cracking wise on a daily televised basis. Although he never officially came out, this Trojan horse in a silk shirt was a presence invited into millions of homes at a time when most weren't exactly hoisting triangle flags for all their neighbors to see. Never merely a limp wrist for hire, somewhat arch and more than a little bitchy, and yet strangely likable, he was deemed "safe" for the whole family's consumption, which only made his spicy dollops of gay wit dropped into the tasteless gruel that was 1970s TV that much more palatable for middle-American consumption. Exhibits A, B and C, from "Hollywood Squares," circa 1974:

Peter Marshall (host): Is the electricity in your house A.C. or D.C.?
Lynde: In my house it's both.

Marshall: True or false: Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason were recently seen in Central Park dressed as women.
Lynde (frightened): Was anyone else identified?

Marshall: In a recent column, Billy Graham said he would like to urge young people to reserve sex for the only place it belongs. Where is that?
Lynde (frightened): A state prison.

Now, nearly 24 years after his death at the age of 55, the man Mel Brooks once described as being capable of getting laughs by reading "a phone book, tornado alert, or seed catalogue" is at long last receiving the kind of serious attention that he always craved and felt he always deserved. "Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story," by Steve Wilson and Joe Florenski, would surely have made the scion of Mount Vernon, Ohio proud -- although, it's safe to say, he would have been none too pleased with the photo of his obese younger self decked out in a snug Boy Scout uniform. Regardless, this frustrated character actor and bit player, this "Liberace without a piano," has finally landed right where he always dreamed he would one day be: in the center of the stage, with the spotlight all to himself.

I spoke with Wilson and Florenski on the eve of their cross-country book tour. In appropriate fashion, a "Paul Lynde impersonator" was invited to join the biographers on their odyssey, but he was deemed too "difficult" and subsequently dropped from the bill.

What happened with the impersonator?

Steve Wilson: Joe and I contacted him to do a little routine with us for the tour, but he had all sorts of demands, like airfare for his makeup person. Would the real Paul have been so difficult to work with? Most likely. So it was kind of fitting.

What made you want to research Paul Lynde in the first place? You're both in your mid-30s and were quite young when Paul was in his prime.

S.W.: I only vaguely remember seeing him on "Hollywood Squares," but I watched a lot of "Bewitched" and caught [the 1973 animated feature based on E.B. White's book] "Charlotte's Web" more than once, too. I never knew that the character of Uncle Arthur and the voice of Templeton the rat were the same man until a roommate gave me the Paul Lynde lowdown. I realized what a lingering impression Paul left on me over the years, and I became even more fascinated when I started looking into his life.

Joe Florenski: That's more or less the same for me. I started researching him out of boredom and couldn't believe so little had been written about him.

Why do you think this is the case? The biographical terrain is pretty well trampled on when it comes to celebrities, well-known or otherwise. While there have been a few articles on Paul Lynde over the years, there's been nothing at all in-depth.

J.F.: I dug up a lot of minor profiles in publications like Weight Watchers magazine, but that was about it. Though Paul was huge on "Hollywood Squares," to most people he was just a character actor on a daytime game show, not worthy of the same kind of ink reserved for movie stars. To many gay people, his reputation fared even worse. In some ways, he came to symbolize what's perceived to be a self-loathing era for gay culture.

S.W.: That was one of the reasons we wanted to write the book, to help restore his standing, at least a little bit. Paul not only made a great and singular contribution to pop culture, but his going out there every day on "Squares" and bringing gay humor to the masses was heroic, even if it was largely unintentional.

What do you mean by unintentional? Was he not aware of his role as a gay icon?

S.W.: If anything, he felt like a gay whipping boy. Bad choice of words there. The friends we interviewed said Paul felt stigmatized by the industry about being gay. And by "unintentional" I mean that he got very fed up with "Squares" and after a while, through a combination of the writers getting more risqué as the '70s wore on and Paul not caring one way or the other, he gradually let his guard down. Eventually, his gayness became incredibly obvious. His jokes came straight from gay culture, but mainstream America back then had practically nil exposure to that world.

Next Page: A little of Paul Lynde went a long way

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