According to Deadline, Billy Eichner of On The Street fame is working with producer Tom McNulty to develop a biopic about Paul Lynde from Bye Bye Birdie, Bewitched, and (for many, many years) Hollywood Squares. The two of them have big plans for this, meaning it won’t be a straightforward account of Lynde’s life, with Eichner saying he doesn’t want this to be like the biopics about gay icons that simply presents them as “martyrs” or “victims.”
Instead, he wants the movie—Man In The Box—to show that Lynde was a complicated person whose career was very clearly held back both because of his sexuality (though he was never publicly “out”) and his own personal issues. Eicher explains that Lynde spent years “waiting around” for someone to come along and write some great thing specifically for him and his sensibilities, but it never happened because the entertainment industry never rallied around him like it did for other talented funny people—despite the enormous amount of mainstream popularity he got from Hollywood Squares.
The Deadline piece actually features an extended interview with Eichner about this project and what drew him to Lynde, and he says he also wants to use it to illustrate how much work Hollywood still needs to do in terms of representation for gay actors. He notes that Elton John, Freddie Mercury, and Harvey Milk were played by straight actors in their biopics, with those straight actors being applauded for their performances, but Hollywood treats it like a joke when an actor who is typically presented as “flamboyant” or “effeminate” tries to play the opposite. He says he’s heard stories in relatively recent times about actors who weren’t “out” being turned down for major roles because studios thought they might come out someday, and he also mentions that the potential cast lists for the rom-com he’s making with Judd Apatow consistently had tons of straight actors—or even exclusively straight actors—for gay characters.
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The bio’s title is a Hollywood Squares reference? No way!
Circle gets the square, mwah-hah.
Hopefully they’ll touch on his role in Radioactive Man.
Ha! I never noticed “Bort” as one of the action words.
There has to be a scene devoted to his reaction to KISS’s performance on the Paul Lynde Halloween Special
FUN FACT: This scene is inspired by one of Lynde’s one-liners on Hollywood Squares.
HOST: What do you usually find in a boy scout’s tent?
LYNDE: The Scoutmaster.
I hope they delve into his personal life and all the glamorous ladies he romanced, what with being a confirmed bachelor and all.
I don’t remember any of their first names, but all of their last names were “Beard.”
If they don’t hire Ben de la Creme to play Lynde, then it’s a complete missed opportunity
That’s not a good impression.
It’s entertaining but Ben de la Creme sounds nothing like Paul Lynde. Yes, she sounds like an effeminate gay man but I don’t hear the specific “Paul Lynde” cadence that is crucial to portraying him well.Speaking of which, recently there have been Geico ads featuring Rocky & Bullwinkle where both of the voices, especially Rocky, are not very close to the originals. With all the voice actors/impersonators out there, this is the best they could come up with?
Honestly, the voices in the Geico commercial aren’t too bad. I’ve heard worse Bullwinkles since Bill Scott passed away. (Though of course it’s impossible to truly replace June Foray.)
I think Jack McBrayer would be perfect for the role.He’s basically the 21st Century Paul Lynde already, especially since he started showing up on ABC’s Match Game revival. He’s totally capable of Lynde’s characteristic snark.
McBrayer’s remote with Triumph for (I think) Conan a few years ago was priceless. How he hasn’t worked constantly since 30 Rock ended is beyond me. I know a lot of folk didn’t like his awe-shucks character, but it was the perfect amount of hillbilly and weirdness that always made me laugh. Forgetting Sarah Marshall may be the only film I can recall him being in. Edit: Just looked at his Wikipedia entry. Apparently does a lot of voice acting. No idea.
He does a lot of voice work. He also works on stage, so he’s definitely not sitting around the house waiting for the phone to ring. I think it might be that he just likes the variety of working a lot of short duration projects as opposed to series television. Many actors value having the flexibility to move from role to role when they please. I remember Patrick Stewart said the thing that sacred him about Star Trek TNG was that he had to sign a six-year contract and wouldn’t be free to do a lot of other work.
Paul’s midwestern….whats up with the Oklahoma/Texas effeminate accent?
I wonder if it will feature him of blaming “The Jews” for ruining his career: https://www.salon.com/2005/08/23/lynde/ Also as related on almost every episode of “Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast.”
Well, speaking as a Jew, we really did conspire to screw him over, it’s a closely-guarded secret. he was onto us.
Hah, Gilbert loves that story! Tbh, he enjoys outing all the Anti-Semites in old Hollywood, like Ward Bond.Also, the story about Cesar Romero, young boy-toys, and orange slices (although some would say that they were tangerine slices).Not to mention the Alan Ladd “You simply must fuck that chicken” story. He hasn’t told those stories recently. I wonder if his lawyer had a talk with him….
Hopefully Billy puts this famous quote into his movie: “This place smells like cunt.I think.”
“Are you Paul Lynde?”“Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I’m Paul Lynde!” ~ Paul Lynde (Billy Eichner), Paul (2011)
Remember when Steve Carell played Paul Lynde in that Bewitched movie? I certainly hope to forget.
You know what, I really had forgotten that, and now you’ve ruined it.
Yeah that was when Steve Carell was going full Jude Law and appearring in everything, he probably didn’t prepare that much for it
The part that always got me about Paul Lynde during his lifetime was that, despite being as bitingly gay as one could be in the 60’s and 70’s, Hollywood kept trying to stuff him into stodgy, family man roles. Look no further than his own sitcom, which only lasted one season. It had him playing an attorney with a wife and two daughters.
That had to be some kind of hell for Lynde; a big star only surrounded by women.
MeTV did a smattering of short-lived shows in the morning a few years ago (just one or two episodes of more obscure offerings, no full seasons of anything, forget what they called the slot) and Paul Lynde’s sitcom was one of them. Pretty bizarre. The “hi, honey I’m home” in the first scene sounded right out of a sketch about the absurdity of putting Paul Lynde into a sitcom where he has a wife and kids.
A documentary miniseries on AppleTV, “Visible: Out on Television” covered Lynde, and the Paul Lynde Show. And yeah, it did come across as though the big joke was “look at Paul Lynde in a special kind of hell,” and the clips were pretty darn depressing.
I don’t understand your logic. He wasn’t out as gay so Hollywood was supposed to give him a role as a gay person?
Paul Lynde who I love, did fine. He was depressed about his career but a lot of straight men were too.
And to suggest that gay representation isn’t there yet today is pretty ridiculous. Just look at the list of shows dominating the Emmys or on every channel: Master of None, Love Simon, Modern Family, Killing Eve, Sex Education, 13 Reasons Why, Schitt’s Creek, Never Have I Ever, Glow, Everything’s Gonna Be OK, Glow, Please Like Me, Happy Endings and Billy Eichner himself.
Btw, I think both Eichner and Lynde are awesome, but all this wokeness talk gives me a head ache
Looks like there are a lot of great Lynde stories to choose from. If the movie wants to get a little lurid though … https://www.countryliving.com/life/travel/a40290/is-the-sir-francis-drake-hotel-haunted/
is billy going to play him? he’d be perfection!
I’ve only ever seen Billy Eichner on Parks & Recreation. So I only know him as “the screaming guy”. That said, if he doesn’t scream all the time, I imagine he could be great in the lead role.
Sounds great but I hope it doesn’t end up on another paid streaming service I would never want otherwise
Well, the track record for biopics isn’t great to begin with and Eichner is a pretty one-note performer (and a shrill one at that.) My expectations are not that high. Still, credit where credit is due for taking a crack at this.I hope they at least give some real perspective as to just how huge Lynde was from “Bewitched” through the “Hollywood Squares.” He was one of the household names of the sixties and early seventies and the first gay celebrity a lot of Middle America ever encountered. It’s really sad no one ever figured out a good vehicle for him past Uncle Arthur who was one of the iconic TV characters of the era and well beloved by schoolkids across the country. “The Paul Lynde Show,” which was supposedly tailored for him by “Bewitched” producer/director William Asher is a mind-numbingly misconceived show that doesn’t remotely play to Lynde’s strengths and almost feels calculated to derail his career. It’s unwatchable and also feels weirdly out of date, like a relic from the fifties. Ironically it tanked about the same time ABC ran “That Certain Summer” which changed how America viewed (and American pop culture depicted) homosexuality virtually overnight.The Halloween special, on the other hand, is a genuinely bizarre gem for anyone who loves good/bad TV. I’m at least hoping for a lovingly crafted “Bewitched” recreation just to wash the taste of that heinous Nora Ephron reboot from my memory.
Any excuse to post the Donny & Marie “Star Wars Musical”…
Love Billy Eichner but I had to stop following him on Twitter so I could keep loving him. Not that Billy is saying anything offensive on Twitter, just that he’s very much the kind of liberal the late great Phil Ochs sang about and I’m quite a bit to the left of that on the political spectrum. Still I love me some Billy on the Street and he’s always hilarious as the school librarian on Bob’s Burgers.