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Paul Lynde (1926 - 1982)

American comedic actor on stage, film, and television, born Paul Edward Lynde in Mt. Vernon, Ohio.  Despite his long resume of varied roles, he was most famous for playing the practical-joking warlock Uncle Arthur on the popular 1960s Bewitched television series, as well as occupying the center square on the Hollywood Squares game show.

Paul Lynde actually grew up living over the Mt. Vernon jail, where his father served as town sheriff, when not also working as the town butcher.   Lynde was an obese child and teen-ager and his weight became a life-long obsession.   He studied drama at Northwestern University and later moved to New York, where he waited tables and sold blood  while looking for acting jobs.  During this time his brother was killed in the Battle of the Bulge and both of his parents died shortly after hearing of the death.  Lynde won a stand-up comedy contest in 1950 and began a career as a highlighted performer at  the Number One Fifth Avenue club.   In 1952,  he appeared in the Broadway stage show New Faces, with Eartha Kitt and future Bewitched co-star Alice Ghostley, performing his "Trip of the Month Club" monologue.

Lynde's break came in 1960 playing Harry McAffee in the Broadway hit Bye Bye Birdie.  He reprised the role in the 1963 film version.   This led to numerous roles in film and especially on television.   In 1964 he guest starred in an epsiode of Bewitched as Samantha's nervous driving instructor.   Impressed with his performance, co-producer William Asher and star Elizabeth Montgomery asked him to return the following year  as Samantha's Uncle Arthur,  a role he would play again several times through the series' run.   In 1966, he appeared with Bewitched co-stars Alice Pearce and George Tobias in the Doris Day comedy The Glass-Bottomed Boat, where he turned in an hilariously memorable scene in drag.   Following the cancellation of Bewitched in 1972, Lynde starred in two more William Asher  vehicles, The Paul Lynde Show and Temperature's Rising.   He also did voice work for many Saturday morning cartoons and animated films, including the voice of Templeton the rat in Charlotte's Web (1973), with Bewitched co-star Agnes Moorehead.   One of his last and most hilarious performances was as Nervous Elk in the 1979 western parody, The Villian.

Beginning in 1968, Paul Lynde appeared as a panelist on Hollywood Squares, where he began a long career as the "center square," delivering many hilarious answers to questions from host Peter Marshall.   Once, when asked, "Can you get an elephant drunk?," Lynde replied, "Yes, but he still won't go up to your apartment."   He was a regular on the show until 1979, and again from 1980 to 1981.

That Paul Lynde was gay was a known secret in Hollywood through much of his life and career.  A story floating around the Los Angeles gay community spoke of Lynde cruising local bathhouses and autographing the buttocks of his nightly tricks.  And it was Lynde who effectively outted Agnes Moorehead as "one of the all-time Hollywood dykes" after the actress's death in 1974.  Lynde was also known to be a heavy drinker, and alcohol was believed to have played a part in the death of a young actor who fell from Lynde's hotel room balcony in 1965, in a scandal which was quickly covered up.   Drunkeness and belligerence were behind his dismissal from Hollywood Squares, and only declining ratings brought his return.  He admitted that he "loved the booze" in a People interview in 1976, but also made the controversial statement that he preferred not to have gay men in his audiences, saying "they killed Judy Garland."

On 11 January of 1982, Lynde was found dead in the bedroom of  his West Hollywood home.  Lying  next to his nude body was a bottle of poppers.  He had apparently overdosed on the stimulant and suffered a heart attack.   His sexual partner, rumored to be a male prostitute, left before the paramedics arrived.

Whatever his personal problems or flaws, Lynde was and still is admired by many for his talent as both an actor and comedian.   Through the medium of television, he entered millions of American homes, thus becoming for many years the most and in fact only visible gay person.  His impressive range, extending from quavering nervousness to bitchy sarcasm, coupled with his comedic timing, endeared him to many straight viewers to the point that they could look beyond his gayness to the person behind the quips.   Small wonder, then, that Out magazine hailed him as a man who helped "make the world a safer one for sissies."

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