Does anyone remember Paul Lynde?

I remember him on Hollywood Squares and Bewitched. He had a mean vibe. As a kid, I found him scary, not funny.

He looks like Eve Arden in that photo.

I knew Paul was gay, even before I knew what the word gay meant. My mom said he was a 'confirmed bachelor'. When I said I wanted to become a confirmed bachelor, my dad spanked me... until, I told him I liked it.

No, no one on Datalounge, a site comprised of 60-something gay men with encyclopedic knowledge of 70s pop culture, has ever heard of him.

R4 Oh, sweetie! It is amazing how much people don't know, remember or have blocked out of their minds.

I loved him on Hollywood Squares:

Peter Marshall: Paul, can you get an elephant drunk?

Paul Lynde: Yes, but he still won't go up to your apartment.

Peter Marshall: In "Alice in Wonderland", who kept crying "I'm late, I'm late?"

Paul Lynde: Alice, and her mother is sick about it.

Peter Marshall: What is a pullet?

Paul Lynde: A little show of affection...

There have been at least three major threads on him in 2023 alone. Don’t type stupid Op.

I dont really remember him, he was just a bit before my time and also less well known down under, sounds like he would have been fun though

Darling, this is DataLounge.

He was before my time, too, but through the magic of reruns I got to know his humor. A truly a funny guy.

Funny until he wasn’t. A mean, racist drunk.

Actually, he was a raging alcoholic, racist and anti-Semite.

After two drinks, all his hate would come out.

[quote] There have been at least three major threads on him in 2023 alone. Don’t type stupid Op. —PhilSpencer

Oh, shut up, Phil. There are major threads on everyone. Get over it!

So sorry, never met him personally, let alone when he was drunk. Just as funny guy. Guess none of you ever got drunk.

Billy should have done this and spared us Bros.

I believe that he and Alice Ghostley were the same person.

[quote]Actually, he was a raging alcoholic, racist and anti-Semite.

R12 Oh. That changes my view, thats sad. Messy queen

Loved him since childhood.

He put a cigarette out on me at a bar in Columbus. Never cared for him after that.

Possible murderer . . .

“On July 18, 1965, Lynde was involved in an incident in which a friend, another young actor, accidentally fell to his death from the window of their hotel room …

Davidson, 26, fell to his death after hanging off the balcony of Lynde's room at San Francisco's Sir Francis Drake hotel.”

He was deluded enough to think he should have been a star rather than a supporting player. A little of him went a very long way and he was destined never to be a star.

Rep 19: Perhaps that was his subtle way of telling you he thought you looked like an ashtray.

Lynde was good in small doses: Bewitched, Hollywood Squares, The Munsters. Got on my nerves in larger doses. Had own sitcom in the early 70s. Also played the father in Bye Bye Birdie. Memorable performance of the song "Kids" in that film

All of his one liners on “Hollywood Squares” were written for him by a team of writers.

R22 is a newbie. Welcome, you stupid whore!

No one has mentioned The Paul Lynde Halloween Special with Betty White, Margaret Hamilton, Billy Barty, KISS, and Donny and Marie?

In one sketch he plays a butch trucker named "Big Red." It ends with Paul performing "Disco Lady."

It makes The Brady Bunch Variety Hour look like Masterpiece Theatre. I worship it.

[quote]All of his one liners on “Hollywood Squares” were written for him by a team of writers.

What I thought of when reading R6. His delivery may have been funny, but he wasn't ad libbing.

R25, It also had Roz “Pinky Tuscadero” Kelly.

R26 . . .

“No one better embodied the raunchy but playful spirit of the show than regular panelist Paul Lynde, an actor and comic who found a whole new level of fame in middle age due to his appearances in the strategic center square. Lynde’s famous quips were actually crafted for him by a team of Hollywood Squares writers, but the Broadway and Bewitched star made them seem perfectly spontaneous, as if he were just making lively conversation at a cocktail party. Unlike virtually everyone else in television, Lynde could get away with making coded references to his barely concealed homosexuality and still make the housewives of America love him. One telling exchange occurs when Marshall poses this question: “Who’s generally better looking, a fairy or a pixie?” Lynde adopts an unnaturally deep voice and says, “Looks aren’t everything!”“

"Paul, what do you call a cross between a horse and a mule that can't reproduce?"

"Barbara Stanwyck."

The Dateline article keeps saying things like his humor seems "surprisingly groundbreaking for its time." Well, no, not really Millennial Reporter -- his humor was completely OF its time, which in many was a much looser and funnier one than where we find ourselves at present. I understand the human bias of always seeing the past as wrong, or lesser, but the way younger generations also always assume the past was a monolithic straight-laced church picnic, despite filmed evidence of shenanigans and "blue" entertainment that go all the way back to silent 1890s Edison Nickelodeon shorts, always baffles me.

And yes the real block to his career was not being gay (that was actually his bread and butter) but the fact that he was perfect as a comedic support but never a lead.

^This blow hard again?

[quote]And yes the real block to his career was not being gay (that was actually his bread and butter) but the fact that he was perfect as a comedic support but never a lead.

Yes. Very much so. Much like Jackie Hoffman today. And like Jackie, Paul had one "persona" — a hilarious one, but still only one.

[quote]All of his one liners on “Hollywood Squares” were written for him by a team of writers.

Oh my God, is this new news to anyone else? Did the New York Times do a story about that scandal. An actor having lines written for him? Quelle horreur!

In the 1960s a twink he brought back to his hotel in San Franciso went flying off the balcony to his death.

He had great comedic timing, which is a relatively rare commodity, even among comedians, and that gave some of his gags much more laugh value than their content would otherwise suggest.

One of my friends saw this sometime (I've never been able to find it on youtube) of him after a standup show in Las Vegas where a drunk heckler continually interrupted his act saying, "I don't get it". Lynde finished his act, and as he was leaving the venue in a limousine, the heckler was being loaded into a squad car by a policemen. Lynde rolled down the window and said, "Now you're gonna get it".

R23, by a whole room full of rainbow parrots who never had to write for a naughty gay man being naughty in publick.

The more I read about him, the less I like him. Like Jackie O or Sinatra.

Show me any comedian and I’ll show you a deeply broken person. It’s a way of dealing with pain. The wittiest people on here must be the most damaged people in real life.