TV Quote of the Day (Paul Lynde, on Hell’s Angels)

Host Peter Marshall: “Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?”

Paul Lynde: “Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.”—Hollywood Squares

As a youngster in the late Sixties and early Seventies, I was addicted to quiz shows, including It’s Academic and the Art Fleming-hosted, Merv Griffin-created Jeopardy. 

But the quiz show with a difference—about as serious as a banana peel on the floor of a vaudeville show—was Hollywood Squares.

Moving across metaphorical tic-tac-toe boards, contestants had to decide whether or not to believe the celebrities in the boxes. More often than not, that meant listening to wisecracks by the likes of comics Rose-Marie, Marty Allen, Jan  Murray, Wally Cox, and Charley Weaver (real name: Cliff Arquette—yes, Rosanna’s granddad).

Center square came to be occupied by Paul Lynde, a stage, film and TV supporting actor who found his own measure of stardom on Hollywood Squares.

“Eccentric,” “fey,” “campy,” “flamboyant,” “bitchy”—it seemed as if, in an effort to capture his essence, critics trotted out every word but “gay,” which is what the actor—who died on this day in 1982 of a heart attack at age 55—was.

Technically, Lynde never admitted his sexual orientation. But if he never formally came out of the closet, he left less than a millimeter of doubt about it.

Theater historian Ethan Mordden, in his discussion of the golden age of Broadway drama, All That Glittered, sees the 1950 John van Druten comedy Bell, Book and Candle as full of encoded language about gays, in the guise of a lighthearted comedy about witches and warlocks. One of the latter, Nicky, is described as “impish, and somewhat impertinent.”

That could describe Lynde as well, particularly when he appeared as witch-housewife Samantha Stevens’s Uncle Arthur, “The Clown Prince of the Cosmos,” on the Sixties sitcom, Bewitched.

One of the actor’s big breaks occurred in the musical Bye Bye Birdie, when, as father Harry MacAfee, he asked grouchily, “What’s the Matter With Kids Today?” 

TV producers may have had that in mind when they finally promoted him, from supporting player to lead actor, in the short-lived, eponymous The Paul Lynde Show (1972).

Audiences never really took to the show, and critics pointed out, rightly, how much its premise—a conservative father barely tolerating his daughter and no-account, lusty son-in-law—resembled All in the Family. 

(I may be one of the few people alive who remembers this sitcom, and, for all its slavish imitation of the huge CBS hit, I doubt if Carroll O’Connor could have packed quite the same kind of inflections into his voice that Lynde’s Paul Simms did in upbraiding the friends of his daughter and son-in-law as “NUUUU-die LOOO-neys!”)

In the current TV environment, when people can say practically anything at any hour, Lynde and Hollywood Squares should be seen in the context of their time. 

Some of his responses would have been considered pretty risqué for that period. (Marshall: “Paul, can anything bring tears to a chimp's eyes?” Lynde: “Finding out that Tarzan swings both ways!”) 

Other responses would, if delivered today, be considered so politically incorrect that they would provoke boycott threats, and such vituperation as to short-circuit a career. (Marshall: “What is the official currency of Puerto Rico?” Lynde: “Food stamps.”)

Though many of the show’s viewers could have guessed that Lynde was gay, they might have had a tougher time figuring out that offscreen, he was a heavy drinker who often struggled with his weight and depression. 

How much of that was due to the particular context of his time, when his sexual orientation was a matter of shame, and how much the product of the insecurity that so often plagues figures in the entertainment industry?

Theater Review: “Bye Bye Birdie,” from the Roundabout Theatre Co.

This weekend, two productions I attended come to an end: the Pearl Theater Company’s Misalliance, by George Bernard Shaw, and the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of the 1960 Charles Strouse-Lee Adams musical, Bye Bye Birdie.

You might have heard a lot—little, if any, of it complimentary—about the latter.

Now, on more than one occasion, I’ve written—in the contrarian spirit of this blog’s title—against critics who’ve piled on concerning certain plays. (See, for instance, my review of Hedda Gabler, starring Mary Louise Parker.)

But Birdie forces one onto barren, thankless terrain, the kind only Clarence Darrow could relish: defender of the damned. This revival doesn’t deserve such a stout defense.

So let’s get this over with quickly, shall we?

* This production, in keeping with the notion of truth in advertising, should have been titled Bad, Bad Birdie.

* Once again, the Roundabout has erred grievously in casting someone with whom they had a congenial experience before in roles for which they’re unsuited now--i.e., the two leads, both of whom appeared before in Cabaret for the company. (Prominent prior examples: Natasha Richardson in A Streetcar Named Desire and Alan Cumming in The Threepenny Opera.)

* One such actor, John Stamos, has the bad luck of assuming the role of skittish, mother-dominated publicist Albert Peterson, acted on Broadway a half-century ago by one of the most nimble, graceful musical comedy hands ever to step on a stage: Dick Van Dyke. Stamos can sing—a little—but can’t dance. If he can act, it’s in a production I’ve never seen. (His expression in the accompanying image captures pretty well what he must have been feeling throughout this misbegotten production: "What did I let myself in for?")

* Gina Gershon has it worse than Stamos. She can’t sing or dance (unlike the woman who created her part of Peterson’s secretary-eternal girlfriend Rose Alvarez, Chita Rivera), and she has no credibility at all playing a Latina.

* The always-terrific Bill Irwin (as Harry MacAfee) and Jayne Houdyshell (marvelous as Albert’s mother) are wasted in subsidiary roles.

* If you really like the songs by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams (including the standard “Put on a Happy Face”), then hunt down the original Broadway cast album.

* The after-show lecture “talk back” at the matinee I attended, featuring John Gilvey, biographer of the show’s original director, Gower Champion, was far more entertaining than anything preceding it.

* The song “The Telephone Hour” should have been given a title that more aptly matches the contents of the entire production: “Stinkeroo Central.”

* If you have a mad desire to go out and see the show this weekend, save your money. We’re in a recession, and we might as well combat waste and abuse in entertainment as much as in government and business.