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What was it like getting away with
being outwardly gay on television before it was cool
to come out? The sarcastic, wise-cracking Lynde,
primarily remembered for his quick wit on the TV
game show Hollywood
Squares and his 10 appearances as Uncle Arthur
on Bewitched, is sympathetically profiled
in this well-researched biography of a demon-plagued
performer who, after a few drinks, used the same
razor-sharp barbs that amused TV viewers to alienate
and devastate friends and foes.
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In an age when celebrities have turned the act of coming
out into an empowering media event, Paul Lynde certainly
seems like a campy relic of less-liberated times. This
view of Lynde as an out-of-step, self-loathing queen of
queens overlooks the man's great, if accidental, achievement:
getting away with being gay on TV on an almost daily basis
for years. During his three decades as a popular character
actor on television, film and the stage, this fairy forefather's
arch and bitchy wit snuck regular doses of the queer world
into that bastion of intolerance, the American living room.
Lynde showed mainstream viewers that a gay man could deliver
the jokes, not just be the butt of them. In doing so, he
helped make homosexuality more palatable to unwitting viewers
who simply saw him as a stylish, funny man. Biographers
Steve Wilson and Joe Florenski draw on revealing interviews
with friends from Lynde's childhood, college days and adult
years-including stars such as Phyllis Diller, Charlotte
Rae, Cloris Leachman and Peter Marshall, who worked with
Lynde in Broadway productions and in film and television.
What emerges is a memorable portrait of a man who reaped
his share of wealth, enjoyed a fair amount of fame and
basked in the adoration of thousands of fans-but paid a
price in hardship, heartbreak and hangovers.
Steve Wilson met co-biographer Joe
Florenski while researching an article on Paul
Lynde for Out magazine in 2000. He ran across
Florenski's website devoted to Lynde. Begun in 1997,
the site contains exhaustive resources on Lynde, and
Florenski has lent research support to both E! and A&E's Biography for
their segments on the comedian. Wilson and Florenski
worked so well together on the piece for Out that
they decided to collaborate on a book.
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