Paul Lynde - A Biography (8 page)

New Faces of 1952
became one of the most successful revues ever. It ran for an astounding 365 performances. When the show closed, Eartha Kitt had become a huge star. Leonard then turned the show into a movie and it premiered in 1954, but he kept the title,
New Faces of 1952,
with most of the original cast including Paul. Leonard was sure it would be as big a hit as the show, but it did not do well on screen.

Paul was disappointed that with all the good press he had received from the Broadway version of
New Faces,
he was not getting offers to work. He needed money to pay his rent, so he performed in another revue,
Come as You Are,
in 1955. His stage fright was becoming severe, and he wouldn’t talk to anyone before the show, but just kept repeating his lines. Again, the audience never had a clue because they only saw a talented, confident actor.

Paul couldn’t believe he would be turning thirty in just a few weeks and still was not a star. Then Leonard Sillman called and asked him to help direct and write sketches for
New Faces 1956.
Paul jumped on it. One of those new faces turned out to be Maggie Smith. Leonard had just brought her over from England, after having seen her in a revue in Oxford. He was raving about her, but when she came to the States, Paul said she was miserable. She would just sit there by herself in the studio every day.

Paul remembered Maggie as sitting on a chair, looking scared, and crying. He wanted to protect her, but he was too shy to let her know this. After days of walking past this silent, tearful female from Oxford, Paul turned to her in his usual sarcastic voice and said, “Troublemaker.” From that moment, they became close friends. He even directed her in one of the skits that he helped write. Paul and Maggie went out socially, and it was rumored that the two were dating. Sometimes Jan Forbes, Paul’s good friend from college, and her husband Joel, would have dinner with Paul and Maggie. Jan noticed that Paul was very taken with Maggie. “He was shy about those feelings and never let Maggie know how he felt about her. They never became romantically involved.” Years later Paul said, “That’s one woman I could have married.”

When Paul recalled his directing days with Maggie and the other cast members of
New Faces 1956,
he admitted he was a terrible director because he wanted everyone to say the lines the way he would do them. He decided to stick to acting.

In 1957, Paul worked with another talented cast while filming,
Ruggles of Red Gap.
It was originally a musical on Broadway and told the story of a western rancher who wins a butler in a British poker game. It was being filmed for television and would air on NBC. The movie starred Jane Powell, Michael Redgrave, Peter Lawford, Imogene Coco, and David Wayne. Paul played the part of Charles Belknap-Jackson.

Buddy Bregman, who did the music for this television movie said:

It was great fun working with Paul Lynde and also Sir Michael Redgrave and Jane Powell. There is a scene in the movie where Sir Michael recited The Gettysburg Address as he was leaving the Wild West, and Buddy said that scene “screams every day with Paul Lynde.” Janie [Jane Powell] and I shared a Limo to rehearsal and taping to NBC Brooklyn studios every day for three months with Paul. I have never had more fun than that on any show. Paul would just say the most hilarious things; we laughed sooo much we could hardly speak.

Buddy wrote the score for movies such as the
Pajama Game
and
Crime in the Streets.
Buddy said:

I have worked with every comedian in the world, Paul Lynde still is the funniest person I have ever known in my whole life, much less worked with! He was an absolute HOOT! Every night [During the filming of
Ruggles of Red Gap]
I went back to my hotel aching from laughing. We could hardly walk after a day with him. I shared a limo with him and from the beginning of each day until late at night — we all ate dinner together as well — we were crying we were laughing so much. His humor was unbelievable.

Audrey Hepburn was in the next studio, doing Maerling, with hubby Mel Ferrer in #3 and every moment I could sneak out, I did to be with her. I finally got her to come into our studio and she screamed with laughter as Paul did her as The Princess in
Roman Holiday
 — outrageously — camped about so much that when Mel came in, obviously not happy that she was there with me, Paul sidled up to him and in a trés butch manner and in keeping with the western theme of our show said, “Whatcha gonna do about it pardner?!” And then skipped off. It was and he was hilarious.

Jane Powell will bear all of this, as she was at the wildest dinner with us at a steak house on Second Avenue. Paul would freak out when the waiters would ask for everyone’s autograph but his. One time he ran after a waiter with a butter knife in his hand and into the kitchen screaming, “Your kids know me — they know who I am!” He then came back to the table breathing hard and ‘powdered’ his face with his steak! It was so wild and it lasted over four weeks!

That same year, Paul repeated his performance of
New Faces of 1952
in Miami, Florida, at the Cocoanut Grove Playhouse, where he enjoyed the beach and sunned himself whenever he had a chance. He then traveled to Missouri to perform in
Irene.
He finished that year in Kansas City as Vivian Budd, a butler, in
Panama Hattie.

Paul returned to New York with some money in his pockets, and he used some of it for a trip to Canada. The plane had to make a fuel stop in Gander, and as it was taking off again, he and the passengers heard a startling noise and then they smelled rubber burning. The stewardess and staff were screaming and swearing in French. Paul did not know what anyone was saying. The plane landed safely, but Paul told a newspaper reporter, after that experience, he would only fly American planes. “Because if someone yells, ‘we’re crashing,’ I want to understand them.”

The funny faces and the acid wit that was delivered with such unusual inflections were still getting noticed, but at a snail’s pace. It was 1958, and Broadway was still the pinnacle of fame, but Paul had no luck getting back on the big stage since
New Faces of 1952.
He was promised a role in a Broadway show called
Jack in the Box,
but it never panned out. He hadn’t been offered any more directing jobs or writing opportunities either, since
New Faces of 1956.
He was sure he had talent, he just couldn’t find where he fit in.

The Golden age of Television was also exploding. The movie industry began installing bigger screens and better audio in their theaters to compete with this home entertainment in a box that almost every American was buying. There were three main networks at the time, which all had hits shows: ABC had
Disney Land,
hosted by Walt Disney, along with
American Bandstand,
a hit show for teenagers dancing to rock and roll hosted by Dick Clark; NBC had
The Tonight Show
and
Dragnet;
and CBS had
I Love Lucy
and
The Ed Sullivan Show.
Paul learned some of these shows were getting over 40,000,000 viewers — this was more exposure then Broadway would ever get him. He needed to be seen regularly on the screen of that box that was sitting in almost every living room in the country.

When the producers at
The Phil Silvers Show
called Paul and asked him to be on an episode, he couldn’t get to the studio fast enough. That show had grabbed
three
Emmys for the best comedy series. Phil Silvers had played Sergeant Bilko of the United States Army, who was always trying to find ways to get rich quick and involved his soldiers in all his schemes. Paul played a desk clerk in the episode “Bilko’s Big Woman Hunt,” which aired on November 5, 1958. He became a semi-regular ‘til the show ended in 1959. Then he had to find more ways to pay his bills.

The unemployed actor was approached to put the skits he had written and performed in
New Faces
along with some of his night club acts on an album. He thought it would certainly do well. One year later, Columbia Records came out with his live recording:
Paul Lynde Recently Released.
It began with The Trip of the Month: his seven minute monologue that got him noticed in
New Faces of 1952. He
followed it with
The Family Just Across the Moat,
where he played a mother who was just released from an institution. He cackles like a witch, while telling her son to wipe his feet, all four of them, and then tells him to go out and play in traffic.

The second track was called
Few Odd Odes,
a bunch of morbidly funny poems written and recited by Paul. One of them was for a terminally ill friend in the hospital. It’s called
Cheer up:

There are roses in bloom,

In my hospital room.

Hear the bird in my window singing a song:

Cheer up, cheer up, you haven’t got long…

The friend passed away while reading it. The artist’s dark humor didn’t hold up its appeal without his physical animated gestures and grimacing faces. The live album died on the shelves, and then his phone went dead too.

Disaster struck Paul when he was at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania, while performing in
Visit to a Small Planet,
in the summer of 1958. Paul was having his usual bout of stage fright before curtain time: petrified that he would forget his lines no matter how many times he had done the same show. He always managed to summon up the courage and get out there and pull it off: not that night, though. In an article titled, “The Nervous Nellie of the Networks,” in
TV Guide
magazine, Paul described how he walked on stage and no words came out of his mouth. His prompters called out his lines, but he stood there frozen for five unending minutes. The audience froze with him. The actors on the stage tried to cover for him, but the scene was not working. Another two full minutes past, still not a sound. The decision was made to bring the curtain down. The speechless actor headed back stage, humiliated, he wanted to walk out and never have anything to do with acting again. The producer and some of the cast reminded him he was meant to be an actor, this was his dream. After much convincing, Paul headed back on stage. He picked up where he left off and he didn’t miss a beat. When the play was over, he received an ovation from the audience.

He continued with the theater circuit and next played Paul Anderson in
Season in the Sun.
In July, he headed to Long Island and appeared in the revue
Dig We Must,
with Alice Ghostly at the John Barrymore Theater in East Hampton. He was getting paid regularly, and he enjoyed having money in his pocket. The next character he played was Maxwell Archer in
Once More, With Feeling,
in Washington, D.C. He was now well-known in the theater industry, and a respected actor, but it was not enough for him.

When summer stock ended, Paul returned to his apartment in New York. He continued to go on auditions and afterwards raced home and stayed glued to the phone. He had been receiving enough praises from critics and was frustrated as to why he wasn’t being asked to do something big. When his phone rang and it was one of his friends, he sounded annoyed as he said, “Oh, it’s you.” He was also bothered again by the way he looked; his weight had gone back to over 200 pounds. The last thing he wanted was to be known as the “fat comic.” He began to lose all his ambition. He stopped going on auditions. He stopped reading the cast calls in the paper.

Then he got a huge break: he was asked to perform his African Trip monologue on
Toast of the Town,
which in 1955 was officially changed to
The Ed Sullivan Show.
This lead to more visibility on television , along with good pay and Paul made appearances on
The Red Buttons Show
and
The Martha Raye Show.
He played the voice of Horace Fenton, the owner of a hotel chain who was never seen but only heard over a loudspeaker in the show, on a sitcom called
Stanley.
It starred Buddy Hackett and Carol Burnett, which was aired on NBC in 1956, but was cancelled after several months. Nothing more came his way, and the actor worried again. He wished he had someone special in his life that he could talk to about it. He began to eat less and lost almost thirty pounds, hoping this would help his career and his non-existent love life.

Paul had been sure
New Faces
would have his name up in lights by now. He was sick of waiting by the phone for offers that never came. He met up with some of his actor friends from summer stock for drinks one night. One of the guys told him he had found an agent and was being set up for an audition. Paul listened, swallowing the last of his drink, and began showcasing his wit. His friends were laughing, having a good time, when another friend joined them announcing his new gig. Paul could not figure out how these guys, some of whom did not even go to school for acting, were landing roles before he was. As the night went on and more drinks were poured, his sarcasm became mean and personal. His friends were taken aback; they couldn’t figure out what came over him.

The next afternoon, when Paul woke up in his apartment, he thought about how he had originally given himself five years to become rich and famous, and now nearly ten years had gone by. He was frustrated, and, just like the two-year-old boy who was taken away from his mother and had to compete for attention, he couldn’t cope anymore. He missed his mom and Cordy, his brother, and was almost glad that his father was not around to see his failure. He thought about Marilyn. His torment escalated from an internalized tantrum to a dark, descending doom. Even Carl Canker couldn’t laugh this one off.

Though he felt terribly down, Paul pushed himself to show up at a party that week. His friends were talking to him, but he couldn’t concentrate. During dinner, he excused himself to leave. His friend, Alice Pearce, pulled him aside and asked him what was troubling him. He told her he was thinking of ending his life. She understood his pain; she had felt lost and alone after her husband died. She told him how she had benefitted from therapy and urged Paul to get into counseling. He was so desperate; he agreed to make an appointment. When his therapist introduced herself, Paul recoiled; her name was Sylvia, the same as his mother’s. She spoke gently and persuaded him to let her help.