Paul Lynde - A Biography (6 page)

Chapter 3

“I became the playboy of New York.”

Paul Lynde

New York was the first Hollywood, with its glamorous night clubs and spotlights that scanned the stars above and below Broadway. It was a tough town for actors, but it was one of the few places that offered open cast calls. You didn’t need an agent to audition, but you sure needed guts, determination, and, above all, talent that could surpass the city’s already finest talent.

When Paul arrived in New York, he looked up the names he was given by an actress he met; born Catherine Gloria Balotta from Cleveland Ohio, she changed her name and was known as Kaye Ballard. Though she was only a year older than Paul, she had already performed on Broadway. Paul couldn’t get over this. Kaye had been performing in Chicago doing
Three to Make Ready
at the Blackstone Theater. The singer and actress would go on to perform in many Broadway plays, movies, television shows, and also became a regular on
The Doris Day Show.
She would become best known by many, for her role in the television sitcom
The Mother-in-Laws.

Kaye first noticed Paul when she had gone to see a Northwestern, Waa-Mu production, which had traveled to the windy city with their cast. Charlotte and Paul were in that show and Kaye, who had an eye for talent, was amazed with how professional it was. She thought Paul was so hilarious. “That guy is truly going to be a star,” she said. She was so impressed with him that she called Broadway Producer Leonard Sillman, telling him he just had to see this guy. She chatted with Paul after the show and gave him some names to contact when he arrived in New York.

With his new friend’s connections, Paul was hanging out with all the right people shortly after he arrived in the big city. He met directors, producers, playwrights, and attended cast parties. He was more interested in being around actors instead of focusing on becoming one himself. He seemed to forget why he was there. “For the first few years I became the playboy of New York,” he said.

He lived recklessly off the money his father sent him, using it to support his partying lifestyle. He loved mingling with all the theater folk and would entertain everyone with his way-out humor at those cast parties. Afterwards, Paul would dive deeper into the night life, finding the after-hour’s clubs, where he did not leave until the sun came up. He couldn’t get enough of New York. The city and the people made him feel so alive. He would never forget the feeling it gave him, and he later would choose that city to spend the second half of his life in. He would buy a brownstone there, but never get the chance to live in it.

Cloris had already been living in New York for a while and was studying at the Actors Studio. She had left Northwestern before Paul because she won $1,000 for coming in third place in a Miss America Pageant. She had her first debut on Broadway with Katherine Hepburn in
As You Like It.
Charlotte had also arrived, and she was performing in theaters and nightclubs throughout the city. Occasionally, the two girls would meet with ‘Paulie,’ as they called him, and Jan would travel from Pennsylvania to New York to be with them. After Jan had left Northwestern, she got married and began having children. She was no longer interested in a career, but always kept in touch with her three buddies.

Paul knew he was lagging behind his college classmates, Cloris and Charlotte. His excuse was that he did not have an agent and he couldn’t afford to hire a writer. Part of him feared he wouldn’t have the luck that was needed to make it in this business. Part of him still clung to his belief that he was born to be famous.

Paul was living in a building across from Carnegie Hall that he shared with other residents, including Marlon Brando, Wally Cox, and Steve Cochrane. Each floor had a bathroom and a kitchen for the tenants to share. The refrigerators were kept out in the halls. When everyone was asleep, Paul would go from floor to floor, sneaking food from each refrigerator. One late night, he crept out of bed and went down the hall where he quietly opened the fridge door. He was shocked to find a note that read:

paul lynde, for your information, one of these bowls contains poison. take your choice.

He wondered who left the note, since most of the tenants were also starving actors, and he presumed they were stealing food like he was.

Paul continued stepping out each evening to parties hosted by his actor friends. His foot-long grin, followed by his infectious maniacal laugh, had a few people in the industry interested. Paul was inching himself into the spotlight, but then he was cast back into the shadows. He just received word that his brother’s body had been found.

That was in the beginning of February 1949, when the Army notified the Lynde’s family of the news. According to Paul’s niece Nancy, those years were very strenuous on Paul and his family. Paul’s brother Cordy had been missing in action in the war since 1940, and now, nine years later, Cordy was pronounced dead. All hopes of his return vanished. A few weeks later, on February 23, Paul’s mother died of a heart attack. “The news actually killed her,” Paul told a reporter, “She died from a broken heart.” He headed home to bury his mother. He had loved her very much and would miss her sweetness and warmth.

Paul returned to New York with a heavy heart. Three months later, Cordy’s remains arrived in Mount Vernon for a military burial. Once again, Paul headed back to his hometown, this time to attend his brother’s burial. Paul stood there with his newly widowed father, who was watching his first-born being buried. The very next day he had a massive heart attack. Hoy was only fifty-four years old. Paul had another family member to bury.

“My parents were young and very much in love, they simply died of broken hearts over a son who was their favorite of the six of us,” Paul later said in an interview. Three family members dead, in just a matter of months. Paul headed back to New York, shielded in shock.

Not long after that, the twenty-three-year-old received a piece of mail from his hometown. As he opened the envelope and began reading, his fragmented heart splintered again. It was a wedding announcement — Marilyn was getting married and he was invited to the reception.

The bride and groom held a private ceremony with just family and a few friends, followed by a large reception at the country club in Mount Vernon. Paul arrived alone. According to Marilyn, when he saw her friend, he asked her how the ceremony went. She said, “Just fine.”

“Perfect,” Paul said sarcastically, “just the way the divorce will go.” Paul stayed for the party and later told a reporter that afterwards, he went home and sobbed uncontrollably.

Paul returned to New York, his fantasies of marriage to Marilyn evaporated. He was so broke he didn’t even have enough money to meet his friends for drinks. He had to do something to survive. He would have to get a job. No money would be sent to him ever again. He later admitted that his father’s death forced him to do something about his career. He worked as a hotel clerk for a short while, then at Atkins department store, and later, his favorite job, as a waiter. When those jobs ended, he went to work as an ambulance driver, where part of the perk was an apartment to live in rent free. After he moved in, he was told he was on call twenty-four hours a day, so he could never leave the place.

It wasn’t so bad at first. He drove elderly people to rest homes or sometimes hospitals, but he wasn’t prepared to pick up his next passenger. He received a call to pick up a client at his home one afternoon. Paul arrived at the man’s home and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He called out, went inside, and saw the elderly gentlemen sitting in his chair. Paul went over to him and then realized he was dead. Paul ran out of there; he had seen enough of death. As he passed by the ambulance he had parked, he put his cap on the front seat and never went back.

Paul did not have enough money to buy food and he was hungry. Out of desperation, he sold his blood. The going price was five dollars for a pint of blood; Paul said it felt like five hundred dollars to him. He returned every six weeks, and said he would have gone more frequently, but that was the minimum amount of time permitted to give more blood. He waited anxiously on the long lines. He couldn’t believe he had to do this. He was supposed to be rich and famous by now. Cloris and Charlotte were well on their way. He shouldn’t be in this position. As he waited in line, he recognized several despaired faces from the last time he was there. An alcoholic in front of him, who reeked of liquor, was next to give his blood, but was refused. Paul watched the pathetic man crumble. “He got down on his knees and begged and cried,” Paul said. He vowed he would never forget that scene, “But you do,” he admitted.

Paul gave his blood, rested a bit, and left. His head hung low as his feet pounded the pavement. For one flickering moment he thought about throwing his dream away: he would settle for becoming a teacher. Then he saw a nearly six-foot-tall man in a reflection of a store window. At first, he only saw the chubby face and a large belly. Then he remembered what his mom used to say to him when he was a young boy, “You hold it well.”

The determination he felt a while back returned to him. He smiled with his titanic teeth and thought, “I
am
going to be rich and famous.” He wanted a drink and some food, and so he headed towards the village. He looked at the only money he had: the five dollars blood money that was clutched in his hand. He thought of one of the lines he recited in college, when he played the role as Scarlet O’Hara: “As God is my witness, I will never go hungry again.” And he wouldn’t.