Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story

Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story
by Steve Wilson, Joe Florenski

Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story
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Book Summary Information

Author: Joe Florenski, Steve Wilson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-08
ISBN: 155583793X
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Advocate Books

Book Reviews of Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story

Book Review: Lynde the real person takes center square in this biotribute
Summary: 5 Stars

Paul Lynde must have been America's greatest comedic actor. He was consumed by immense pain and loneliness while playing the sardonic wit who managed to leave audiences with a smile and wanting more.

He is most noted for `Uncle Arthur' on `Bewitched', one of Samantha Stephens's (Elizabeth Montgomery's) relatives who liked Darrin for being himself. He is also famous for being the most popular `center square' on Hollywood Squares, although he was not the original.

The sitcom `Bewitched' used a `witch/mortal' plotline to project interracial marriage issues into suburbia on a weekly basis. It's fitting that Lynde also used his guest star episodes to deliver what is now recognized as being queer commentary. I was too young to grasp the in-jokes when catching the episodes, but now see many cleverly placed references---aided by his delivery. However, it's also sad that the 1960's weren't swinging for everybody

Because Lynde was from a generation and in an era where gay people were `deviants' he did not accept himself. Like Darrin #2 Dick Sargent, Lynde had to make the inevitable and difficult choice. How much of his real self could he afford to disclose in public? The humor which audiences did see was the end result of Lynd's unenviable internal conflict. It was not easy being Paul Lynde.

Internal conflict ultimately led to his substance abuse. Substance abuse problems and his unresolved internal conflicts led to brutish treatment of others and ultimately his early death. Lynde died January 1982 at the age of 55. Lynde had friends (Charlotte Rae, Cloris Leachman) but even they could not help him. He needed to have been able to help himself instead.

Normally I'm not a big fan of corporately published books on one person, I tend to think they are too glossy and that I am not receiving the full picture. However, I am making a very big exception with this title. Having existed pre-Stonewall itself, the Advocate had the sensitivity which was needed to give Lynde's memory a truly appropriate tribute.

This straight woman can't help wondering what else Lynde could have accomplished in a later time when he would have been able to be himself. My generation tends to take 'coming out' for granted, but the fact that we are able to have these public expressions today saves us a lot of heart ache and internal conflict.

Summary of Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story

Advocate Books Life Stories

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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