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CENTER SQUARE
THE PAUL LYNDE STORY

by Steve Wilson & Joe Florenski


"A second-rate celebrity usually gets the biography he deserves, but Paul Lynde got posthumously lucky. Steve Wilson and Joe Florenski, both Lynde fans, do a first-rate job on Lynde's distinctly unillustrious career."
- New York Blade

"The sarcastic, wise-cracking Lynde, primarily remembered for his quick (and scripted) double-entendres 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."
- Publisher's Weekly

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Site Maintained by Joe Florenski,
the Co-Author of Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story
Comments & Questions

My Paul Lynde Blog
(Updates & News)



      

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.



      

ABOUT THE BOOK


| Contact Joe Florenski |
| Reviews | Interviews | Salon Interview |
| New York Times Ad | Out Magazine [pdf] |


OTHER TOPICS


| Paul's Xmas Credits |
| Paul Lynde & Alice Ghostley |
| Paul's Summer Stock Reviews |


OVERVIEW OF PAUL LYNDE'S
LIFE & CAREER

(Updated at Whim)


Biography
| Primer |

Television
| TV Series | Game Shows | Guest Star |

Theater
| Amateur | Nightclubs | Stock | Broadway |

Film
| Film Credits |

Minutia
| Paul's Confessions | Historic Fan Q & A |
| Kenley Players List |

Why Paul? Why not!
Researched by Joe Florenski on lunch hours
to ease the pain of a mind-numbing desk job.
Created throughout 1997 and
posted February 9, 1998.
The book was started in January 2002 & first published in August 2005.
This site was tweaked on
July 24, 2008.