New Book: Center Square
A touring revue called What's New leads to Lynde's Broadway break, in New Faces of 1952, where Lynde meets a lover in lead dancer Jimmy Russell. Cast in New Faces, Charlotte Rae opts instead for the Broadway musical Three Wishes for Jamie, which pays better. Coming in to take her place in New Faces is Alice Ghostley, who "bore an uncanny resemblance" to Lynde. Eartha Kitt becomes the show's breakout star, although some feel that the attention goes to her head. Lynde scores in the show with his African safari monologue and a Mel Brooks sketch spoofing Death of a Salesman. He continues with the show, on tour and on film, for almost two years.
After early TV work including the series "Stanley" with Buddy Hackett and Carol Burnett, Lynde is asked by producer Leonard Sillman to direct and contribute to the sketches in the less successful New Faces of 1956. Cast member Jane Connell recalls that "directing wasn't his strongest point," and that Lynde was agreeable during rehearsals "except when he drank. And he drank a lot." During the run, Lynde is rumored to be dating '56 cast member Maggie Smith.
After more work as a featured player in stock Madame Lucy in Irene, a "best of" New Faces show, Lynde gets his second Broadway break, as Harry MacAfee in Bye Bye Birdie. Originally a minute role, director Gower Champion promises to build up for the part for Lynde, who eventually gets two songs. Lynde ad-libbed the "Ed, I love you" line in "Hymn for a Sunday Evening." The authors note that Lynde "didn't play MacAfee gay, but he didn't play him straight either." Lynde is annoyed when Dick Gautier's Conrad Birdie gets a Tony nomination and Lynde does not.
After penning two sketches for the quick flop New Faces of 1962, Lynde gains exposure on TV's "Perry Como Show," where he works with friend Kaye Ballard. Then he's hired for the film version of Bye Bye Birdie: "Paul made no secret of his disdain for the new script," and Lynde dubbed the project "Hello, Ann-Margret." Soon he's playing Uncle Arthur on "Bewitched," a ten-episode role that "wasn't specifically gay, but, as with so many Paul Lynde roles, may as well have been." Lynde works on the show with replacement Darrin and fellow gay actor Dick Sargent, who disdains Lynde's promiscuous sex life.
The '60s are devoted to TV pilots and films, including the Doris Day vehicle The Glass Bottom Boat. "Paul told a friend that the director shot Day's close-ups through a Navajo rug." And then comes the program for which Lynde will always be remembered, a gig that would eventually prove a mixed blessing, a fifteen-year stint on TV's "Hollywood Squares." The "ad-libs" which Lynde delivered so brilliantly were provided by the writing staff. The authors believe that "by exposing his viewers to gay humor every day, he at least got them laughing with a homosexual instead of at one....Paul's great, if accidental, achievement: getting away with being gay on TV on an almost daily basis for more than a decade."
One of the most intriguing sections of the book covers Lynde's years of working in high-paying summer stock on the John Kenley circuit in Ohio, beginning in 1969. Lynde would make fabulous salaries for appearing in Warren, Dayton, and Columbus, the vehicles ranging from The Impossible Years, Don't Drink the Water, and Plaza Suite to My Daughter's Rated X, and Stop, Thief, Stop!!
His co-star in Plaza Suite is Elizabeth Allen, and Lynde suggests her for the role of his TV wife on the unsuccessful "Paul Lynde Show," on ABC during the 1972-'73 season. That's quickly followed by another failed attempt at a sit-com, "New Temperatures Rising," with old friend Alice Ghostley playing his sister.
Lynde tours the stock circuit in his own variety show and in a combo evening featuring one act apiece from Neil Simon's Plaza Suite, California Suite, and Last of the Red Hot Lovers. Lynde also appears on a series of specials and on the Donny and Marie Osmond program. With the end of "Squares" in 1982, Lynde falls into a depression which may have contributed to his death at the age of 55.
Center Square contains a good deal about the drinking that tended to turn Lynde bitter and mean, and his sex life "with an assortment of seedy and sinister men." His personal life becomes fairly chaotic, with numerous embarrassing incidents and altercations. At not one but two parties, Lynde drunkenly eviscerated Harold Prince, and later heckled a career-slumped Robert Morse.
Jane Connell recalls Lynde as "the kind of person you would be afraid might be a suicide victim in terms of self-hatred and how he dealt with it." But Birdie lyricist Lee Adams says, "Paul's great quality was he was able to translate his anger at the world, his hostilities, into humor."
One may wish that Wilson and Florenski had gone into even greater detail in some areas. But the 236-page book covers its subject well.