Nobody knows how much of an impact somebody will have until they make it, but it's also true that some people are so ahead of their time that they aren't fully appreciated until they're gone. And that's especially true when they rise to prominence in a time when they're not likely to be accepted for who they really are.
And while actor and comedian Paul Lynde was deeply conscious of the time he was in, his daring approach to transgressing its norms broke ground that wouldn't even have occurred to so many people back then. However, people's lives and legacies are often more complicated than their proudest moments, and Lynde's was no exception. Nonetheless, both the entertainment world and American society at large may not have been the same without him.
The birth of an icon
Paul Lynde's family was originally from Mount Vernon, Ohio, but he was born in nearby Clinton Township on June 13, 1926. Although Turner Classic Movies noted that his father, Hoy Lynde, was once the sheriff of Mount Vernon, he was a butcher by the time of Paul's birth.
His mother's maiden name was Sylvia Bell Doup, and when Paul was five, she played an integral part in a family trip to New York City that would change his life. Of course, that wasn't so obvious to anyone at the time.
His early inspiration
While on that trip, Lynde's mother took him to a screening of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Specifically, it was a rerelease of the formerly silent movie with added sound. Lynde would later say that this movie experience inspired his own acting pursuits.
According to Entertainment Weekly, however, it took quite some time for this acting seed to germinate. Until college, his embrace of the entertainment world was limited to playing the bass drum in his school band. Still, he showed his early talent in another way.
Early struggles
According to Turner Classic Movies, Lynde was put out of commission for about a year during his childhood, which led him to gain a great deal of weight. By the time he was a teenager, Lynde weighed about 260 pounds.
Unfortunately, his weight made him a target for bullies and prompted his other classmates to ostracize him. However, he was able to win them over by becoming a class clown. And his knack for making people laugh didn't go unnoticed by the faculty.
A push toward his dream
Lynde's high school drama teacher recommended he take advantage of the theater program at Northwestern University, and he clearly took it to heart, as he enrolled in the Illinois college after graduation. According to Turner Classic Movies, he wasn't the only future star among his classmates, as Cloris Leachman also attended this program.
Entertainment Weekly reported that he quickly stood out among his peers thanks to a series of clever monologues he wrote himself. But while he was finishing his education there, the first of many tragedies within a staggeringly short time would strike.
A destroyed family
When Lynde started studying in 1944, his brother Cordon was overseas as part of an American force gearing up to invade Germany. However, that plan spiralled into one of the bloodiest battles of World War II that saw fighting cross national lines into Belgium and Luxembourg.
In the years after the war ended, this chapter in the fighting became known as the Battle of the Bulge. And when it was all over, Cordon was listed as missing in action. His remains were discovered in 1949.
A lifelong trauma
Tragically, that would only be the beginning of Lynde's sorrows in 1949, as his parents suddenly passed away within just three months of each other. As Cathy Rudolph wrote in Paul Lynde: A Biography - His Life, His Love(s) and His Laughter, he hated whenever anyone told him "goodbye" due to the finality of the word. He preferred, "I'll see you soon."
He went through life saddled with a preoccupation with dying young, and one of his greatest disappointments in life was that his parents never lived to see who he would become. In his words, "They would have never believed I would have been an achiever."
A rough start
However, his achievements were far from an overnight success. After Lynde moved to New York City in 1948, he lived in a tenement building with several other young actors, including Marlon Brando. Lynde was all but literally starving during this time and waited tables to get buy while also selling his blood to city hospitals.
Although he secured some small roles during this time and made his Broadway debut alongside Eartha Kitt in Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952, Turner Classic Movies explained that it would be about eight years before he would grace a Broadway stage again. However, this time it counted.
His big break
As Entertainment Weekly outlined, fortune finally smiled on Lynde when he landed the role as the anxious dad Harry MacAfee in Bye Bye Birdie. In addition to truly getting his foot in the door of show business, the role was also pivotal for introducing what would be his signature style to the world.
That was because he played a father differently, as a somewhat effeminate figure of befuddled outrage. As The Quad-City Times described it, his nasal, midwestern voice, his propensity for twisting his face into extreme expressions, and his straddling of the line between the day's understanding of how gay and straight people acted made him an incredibly popular comedian.
Making the jump to the big and small screens
Although Lynde had secured some small TV roles before joining the cast of Bye Bye Birdie, his performance as Harry MacAfee made him even more of a star after the show's Broadway run was finished. While his trademark sardonic venom was put to good use as a sportscaster in the 1963 film Son of Flubber, that wouldn't be his biggest role that year.
According to Turner Classic Movies, he was only one of two Bye Bye Birdie cast members to reprise their role in the 1963 film adaptation of the musical, with the other being Dick Van Dyke. After he made his trademark impression on a wider audience, Lynde found additional movie roles and recurring spots on TV.
A consummate professional and the life of the party
As fellow actor Woody Woodbury told The Quad-City Times, Lynde was a consummate professional who not only memorized his own lines with ease but also knew everyone else's in the productions he was in.
One of his best-known roles was Uncle Arthur in the magical sitcom Bewitched, where he was able to blend that professionalism with a reputation as an off-screen figure of fun. As director Richard Michaels told Entertainment Weekly, "His personality was the same off-camera as it was on camera. There was nobody really like him; he saw everything as a joke, and it made him a natural."
Another tragedy strikes in his private life
Although Turner Classic Movies noted that some savvier viewers had cottoned on to Lynde's orientation by this point, it was far less of a secret in Hollywood. And that was especially true after a tragic incident in San Francisco in 1965.
According to Entertainment Weekly, he had carried on a relationship with 26-year-old James "Bing" Davidson, but that suddenly ended one night when two police officers saw Davidson hanging from the balcony of Lynde's room at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. Although Lynde grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back in, Davidson fell to his death. Police saw enough to clear Lynde of any responsibility, and his career was largely unaffected, but the incident would be the subject of rumors for years afterward.
His sorrows compacted
Although a remarkable stroke of luck kept Lynde's career from being mired in scandal after the incident at the hotel, he also had plenty of reason not to feel fortunate that year. His professional life seemed almost perfect, but another grim event was about to affect his personal life.
In a year when he had already lost Davidson, Lynde also had the misfortune of learning that his brother John had died. Not only had Lynde lost yet another family member, but John was only 38 years old when he passed away.
His most long-running gig
During the following year, Lynde appeared on the game show Hollywood Squares for the first time and by 1968, he would reliably occupy the center square. Indeed, this show would become a significant part of his legacy and cemented his signature style in millions of American homes.
Not only was he known for his snide remarks and clever comebacks, but he also mastered the art of innuendo that hinted at racy matters and the truth of his personal life while maintaining plausible deniability. Although Turner Classic Movies noted that these barbs were written by other people, they felt like his genuine off-the-cuff responses.
The key to his legacy
Although Entertainment Weekly noted that Lynde and his characters weren't the first gay-coded figures in show business, his predecessors tended to be the butt of cruel mockery. Yet Lynde could not only give as good as he got but found an endearing balance to his snark.
He was the jokester himself, and his humor was formative for many LGBTQ youths. As author Frank DeCaro told the outlet, "The turning point in my life, when I went from being the teenage nerd to one of the popular kids, was when I auditioned for a drama club production in 1980 of Bye Bye Birdie by doing my Paul Lynde impression—an impression a lot of little gay kids did in those days."
A complicated figure in his community
However, it would be misleading to say that Lynde was and remains an unequivocally celebrated figure in LGBTQ circles, as theirs was not a community he was willing to embrace publically. Entertainment Weekly noted that when he offered gay characters during the 1970s, he always turned them down.
This was because the majority of his fans were straight, and he appeared to believe that his career would be ruined if that were to change. As he once put it in a 1976 interview with People, "Gay people killed Judy Garland, but they're not going to kill me." Naturally, statements like this brought him significant and long-term backlash from the gay community.
Even this aspect of him was complicated
Although this rejection understandably led some to characterize Lynde as a self-hating gay person, there's perhaps a danger of oversimplifying his psyche in this way. Although he may not have exactly embraced the gay community, that's not to say he was inclined to completely divest himself from it either.
This could be seen in Rudolph's biography of him when a reporter made a loaded reference to Anita Bryant — a prominent evangelical entertainer who incited various moral panics aimed to curtail gay rights — at a charity event. As he told Rudolph and others in a private setting soon after, "She attacked my people."
Lynde strikes it rich
Lynde would continue appearing on Hollywood Squares until 1980, and in addition to affording him additional TV roles, this job proved steady enough that Entertainment Weekly credited him for logging up to 200 televised hours per season by the mid-1970s.
This not only made him a household name, but brought Lynde considerable wealth. So much so that, at his peak, Lynde had amassed enough capital to buy a Los Angeles mansion that once belonged to movie star Errol Flynn. He lived there with his dog, whom he named after his character in Bye Bye Birdie.
Money wasn't everything
Although Entertainment Weekly noted that Lynde's fame and wealth were considerable by the 1970s, it was also clear that neither did as much to satisfy him as he may have expected. One problem was that Lynde was unable to find love and entered a string of relationships that did nothing to quell his unhappiness.
However, perhaps the biggest of his frustrations was professional in nature. Although he had money and fame, Lynde was acutely aware that he didn't have prestige. He longed to be taken seriously as an actor but was rarely able to secure anything more than comedic roles as side characters.
Arrested development
Not only was Lynde unable to secure many opportunities to show what he could do dramatically, but he found that any attempts to turn himself into a leading man were short-lived at best. Even in his most comfortable wheelhouse, that wasn't in the cards.
According to Turner Classic Movies, he launched The Paul Lynde Show on ABC in 1972 and starred in an updated version of the hospital sitcom Temperature's Rising called The New Temperature's Rising Show during the same year. However, his show would only last one season, and the hospital sitcom was canceled by its second season's 20th episode.
A children's classic for the ages
Although many of Lynde's ventures from this period would languish in obscurity after their brief promotional window, there was at least one project he was involved in during the early '70s that would end up standing the test of time.
According to Turner Classic Movies, Lynde scored some voice work in animated features like Journey Back To Oz and Hugo The Hippo in 1974. But the most beloved example of this work would come a year earlier when he voiced the lovably self-interested rat Templeton in the animated adaptation of Charlotte's Web.
Why couldn't he go further?
For much of the rest of his life, Lynde was frustrated and stymied by his efforts to secure better roles or to lead a show successfully. As Entertainment Weekly noted, Lynde often wondered whether the rumors about the hotel incident had come back to haunt him.
Even if the reason wasn't that specific, he also suspected that either his flamboyant personality or his general orientation was prompting Hollywood's gatekeepers to give him the cold shoulder. In the eyes of some observers since those days, however, there was one factor he failed to take into account.
His personal demons were getting harder to hide
By the time he became unsatisfied with his career, Lynde had indulged in excessive drinking and had developed a habit for narcotics. But while that had been true before, it was becoming much more difficult for him to hide and for others to ignore by the 1970s.
For Lynde, the problem wasn't just the intoxication itself. His struggles with these substances had also exhibited a clear effect on his personality when he was using. And while he could go either way during these episodes, he alienated others more often than he didn't.
His humor got him out of trouble
As The Quad-City Times shared while outlining one incident from this period of his life, Lynde could sometimes maintain the more charming aspects of his personality while he was under the influence. This moment started with Lynde driving his Bentley up onto a sidewalk, whereupon he was immediately caught by a police officer.
After the officer turned on his siren and got Lynde to pull over, he approcahed the car only to hear Lynde yell, "I'll have a burger all the way" out the window. Since the cop recognized Lynde's voice, he simply laughed and offered to escort the actor home.
An infamous mean streak
However, Lynde's benders were much more likely to see him indulge his mean streak. And it wasn't to be underestimated. The venom that gave his comedy a cheeky bite could be used in a much more destructive way when he wasn't joking.
As Entertainment Weekly quoted a musician named Jack Holmes as saying, "Every word out of his mouth was venomous, with a sting that really hurt, into every unexpected vulnerability a human might have." Once his friends had been treated to enough of these tirades, Lynde would only further isolate himself.
An alienated friend
In her biography, Rudolph recalled that Lynde had shared a long-time friendship with actress Kaye Ballard. Since both had struggled with their weight at various times in their lives, they often supported and motivated each other as they saw the peaks and valleys of their respective journeys together.
However, Ballard found there was an ugly side to this when she lost significant weight for the TV show The Mothers-In-Law and felt good about herself. Lynde pressured her to lose more, and since he had been drinking, he phrased this in an unspecified but reportedly "merciless" way. This was far from the first of his inebriated bouts of cruelty she had been treated to, but it was the last because she ceased all contact with him from then on.
His addictions got out of hand
According to Turner Classic Movies, Lynde's drinking, substance use, and the unpleasant personality changes that these influences inspired led his coworkers and his remaining friends to grow concerned for him. That's because his behavior wasn't strictly off-the-clock anymore.
When he reached the late '70s, his balance between his larger-than-life personality and his consummate professionalism was starting to tip away from professionalism. And since his personality was decidedly less fun than it used to be, this had some unpleasant consequences for his career.
A lost opportunity
By 1978, Lynde had secured a recurring spot on the cast of Donnie And Marie, a popular variety show hosted by the famous pop-singing brother and sister duo, Donnie and Marie Osmond. Their show ran from 1976 to 1979 but Lynde wouldn't be there when it finished.
That's because 1978 would see Lynde dropped from this show's roster. This occurred in the wake of an incident that saw him arrested outside of a gay bar in Salt Lake City, Utah. Unfortunately, it was far from his only public humiliation during this period.
Lynde embarrassed himself
In the midst of his addiction, Lynde was invited to his alma mater as a special guest. However, Rudolph chronicled that he managed to alienate Northwestern University's administration while inebriated in a Chicago Burger King.
That's because he launched into a rant at a Black man in line in front of him that disparaged his race. That man turned out to be James Pitts, an associate professor of sociology who taught at Northwestern. Turner Classic Movies reported that he also expressed his career frustrations with anti-Semitic remarks around the same time.
A harsh reality
According to Entertainment Weekly, Lynde's frustrations with his career boiled over in 1979. Feeling that his Hollywood Squares position had led to him being pigeonholed, he quit the show to pursue new opportunities in Hollywood. However, he seemed to overestimate those opportunities.
Apparently under the impression that someone in Hollywood was itching to cast him, Lynde waited at home for what they had to offer. But that wait occurred in silence. As Rudolph wrote, "He thought somebody's going to call him. Nobody did."
The rumor mill worked overtime
During this time, a rumor started among some Hollywood Squares crew members that rather than leave the show, Lynde had been fired for his drinking and erratic behavior. These rumors eventually reached The National Enquirer, which was happy to report it in the tabloid's usual, uncritical fashion.
Since Lynde left Hollywood Squares of his own volition, he filed a $10 million lawsuit against The National Enquirer for defamation of character. Despite his fervor, however, the lawsuit was summarily dismissed before long.
A sheepish return
However Lynde's exit from Hollywood Squares took place, it was short-lived. Eventually, he came to realize how limited his remaining opportunities in the entertainment industry had become. Whether it was due to any of the previously discussed factors or a combination of all of them, Hollywood wasn't interested.
So, according to Entertainment Weekly, Lynde returned to Hollywood Squares in October of 1980. This meant that he would get to participate in what would turn out to be the show's final season.
Lynde leaves the limelight
After his brief return to the show that made him a household name, Lynde largely disappeared from public life. Although Rudolph described him as missing the work in the latter years of his life and longing for an Academy Award, he knew it wasn't going to happen.
That's not to say he never received any scripts during this private period. However, he didn't come across anything he found interesting by the fall of 1980. As Rudolph put it in her book, "He wanted something exciting to do."
Some long overdue self-improvement
During this quiet period in Lynde's life, he made a serious effort to get out from under his demons. Although there wasn't much he could do about the bridges he had burned, he could attack the root of why they burned in the first place.
So, as Rudolph witnessed during her time with him, Lynde was able to stop drinking and stop using narcotics entirely. As she put it, "Paul had been sober for a while. He used the same willpower he used to stop overeating."
Some disappointing consequences
But while Lynde had successfully extracted a pernicious negative influence from his life, it was clear the damage had been done in many ways. This became particularly apparent in Rudolph's book when Northwestern University was planning a spectacular event called The Way We Were, which featured over 100 famous alumni.
Cloris Leachman, Ann Margaret, and Charlton Heston were among those invited, but Lynde wasn't. And he would soon learn that this was no mistake but rather a deliberate consequence of his Burger King tirade against Professor Pitts. He was crestfallen.
He held firm
Although facing the reality of how deeply he had alienated people during his wilder and more venomous years hurt Lynde, Rudolph wrote that he never spiralled back into his old habits. He may have missed show business, but it seemed he didn't miss that part of it.
In Rudolph's words, "Paul was now waking up each morning with a clear head. He told some friends that he felt more alive than he had in years." It wasn't a feeling he was willing to trade away so easily.
A return to where it started
Although Lynde found a lot to enjoy about his Los Angeles home, he also decided to buy a brownstone in New York City. He also wanted to open a restaurant there called East Lynde and live in that brownstone for most of the year.
For him, this was about returning to the place where he felt the most alive. Ballard later told Rudolph that it was there that she recalled seeing her old friend the happiest he had been, especially when he was first cast in New Faces Of 1952. As she put it, "It was his first taste of success."
This is goodbye
As Rudolph told it, Lynde's friends and former coworkers thought he looked great when they ran into him. Yet, while he may have felt that way, everyone in his life would soon learn that his health was far more dire than they thought.
On January 10, 1982, Paul Lynde passed away of a heart attack at the age of 55. According to Entertainment Weekly, he had been alone in bed when it had happened. Even this discovery was the subject of lascivious rumors, but they were baseless.
The impact was immediate
As Rudolph wrote, Lynde's passing shocked and devastated his friends and Hollywood Squares costars. Jan Murray took the news particularly hard and kept her best friend's Emmy award on her mantel. She also kept a box of letters he had written to her, which she had kept closely guarded.
Ironically, archivist Kevin B. Leonard told Rudolph that Northwestern University became interested in collecting Lynde's professional records, photographs, and scrapbooks around the time she was finishing Paul Lynde: A Biography - His Life, His Love(s) And His Laughter.
Remembering a complicated man
Although Lynde was as infamous for inflicting pain as he was celebrated for making people laugh, his passing nonetheless left holes in the hearts of many. In truth, it was hard for many to gauge who Lynde really was, and this was apparently intentional on his part.
Entertainment Weekly reported that he once appeared on The Tonight Show, where Johnny Carson asked why Lynde didn't talk about himself more often. In response, he said, "I really don't know—other than I'm absolutely scared. Scared of coming out and being myself."
Nonetheless, a legacy
But while everyone from his friends to his coworkers to the LGBTQ community has complicated memories of Lynde, there was no denying his legacy. He changed what kind of humor was acceptable in the mainstream, and his iconic mannerisms remain imitated decades after his passing.
Both within show business and among what would turn out to be millions of fans, Lynde remains loved, remembered, and missed. It's hard not to wonder whether he could have gotten everything he wanted if he wasn't so ahead of his time.
