Paul Lynde - A Biography (11 page)

As Nancy became a teenager, she learned to play piano, and her uncles would come by and sit with her and play along. Cordy had a beautiful voice and could play piano by ear. Paul said he was the one who should have gone into show business.

When their uncle was living in New York, he would shop there for gifts to bring to his relatives. Among Connie’s favorites were marionettes called Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall from
The Howdy Doody Show.
On another visit to Ohio, her uncle brought her “Clarabelle” from that same show. It was the famous mute clown who never spoke until the very last show and only said, “Good-bye Kids.”

Grace, Helen, and Nancy would get beautiful gowns from their brother. “The type you would wear to a premiere in New York or a fancy occasion,” Connie said. Uncle Paul also brought Connie a Daniel Boone fringe jacket with a coon skin cap with a tail. He brought his young nephew Cordy, the most wonderful tricycle with a red wagon attached. That tricycle ended up being very valuable years later.

The family was amazed how much Paul had slimmed down during the Broadway
Birdie.
He was doing well financially and had also just finished doing his first commercial for Instant Maxwell Coffee. Paul usually visited the family alone, but as the years went by he sometimes brought along his chauffeur or bodyguard. According to Connie, Paul was very respectful to the family. He kept his love life very private.

Nancy remembered when her uncle was first living in New York, he was struggling. It was about a year before
New Faces,
and Paul called his sister Helen and told him he was going to be in a revue called “
What’s New?
” that would be coming to Cleveland. Nancy and her mother, Grace, along with Helen, drove to the Statler Hotel to see him. The cast would do a floor show, singing and dancing. It happened to be on Nancy’s birthday, and, during intermission, the whole cast sang happy birthday to her. Paul had set that up as a surprise. He was always doing special things like that for the family.

On Wednesday, July 10, 1963, when Paul was thirty-seven years old, Mount Vernon declared a “Paul Lynde Day,” to honor his achievements in the arts. It was a huge celebration and the streets were filled with fans, friends, his former classmates, teachers, and almost everyone who lived there. The town put together a parade for Paul, and afterward there was a reception.

When Mount Vernon High School put a new wing on the school, it was dedicated to Paul. One of his female friends from high school gave a huge party for him. His fellow Ohioans made him honorary congressman for his work for the heart foundation. When the Kenley Players brought their production to Ohio, which Paul starred in, it was a guaranteed sellout. He was given the red carpet treatment, and it seemed that the majority of the state came out to see him. “When I do a show in Ohio, it’s Judy Garland time,” Paul told
TV Star Parade,
“It’s very emotional and overwhelming.”

Mount Vernon became a magical town on those nights. Huge crowds would gather to talk to Paul after the show and get his autograph. The family was very proud of him and saw how gracious he was to his fans; he would stop and talk to all of them, never refusing an autograph or a handshake. Sometimes Connie would have dinner for her uncle and the family at her house. Other times Paul would reserve a private room at a Polynesian restaurant nearby, so they could spend time with him alone.

In the summer of 1963, Paul said good-bye to his favorite city, New York, and moved to California. New York had Broadway and many acting opportunities, but it was time for him to go where MGM, Paramount, and most of the major motion picture studios were. He hoped to live one day among the movie stars, but for right now The City of Angels seemed like a good place to start. He rented a Spanish-style home on Phyllis Avenue in Los Angles. Shortly after he was settled in, he flew back to Mount Vernon where he would join his roots for a special showing of the movie,
Bye Bye Birdie.
It was an extravagant night for the town and his family, and, once again, Paul showed his gratitude to all his friends and fans who showed up to support him.

Paul headed back to his new home in the golden state, where he still had family close by. Both Helen and Johnny had moved to Los Angeles before he did. Johnny worked as an accountant there and he fixed clocks as a hobby. Paul invited his brother and sisters along with his nieces and nephew who flew in from Ohio, to see a taping of
The Hollywood Squares.
He introduced his family to Charlie Weaver, Richard Krennar, Peter Marshall, and all the stars that appeared on the show that week, and then they dined together during the break.

In 1964, Paul was given the role as the sportscaster in Walt Disney’s production of
Son of Flubber,
starring Fred MacMurry. The movie was a sequel to
The Nutty Professor
and both movies did well
.
Paul appeared in his next movie,
For Those Who Think Young,
which United Artists released in July 1964
.
It starred Ellen Burstyn and James Darren. Paul played Hoyt, part of a two-man night club act — the other man was Woody Woodbury, who was known for his nightclub acts and played himself. The movie was about a group of teenagers whose favorite beach hangout was about to be shut down, so they blackmailed the owner in order to keep it open. That movie did well at the box office.

Woody Woodbury recalled:

At Paramount, it was the most happy-go-lucky bunch I ever worked with. They were all young kids and I believe other than George Raft and Robert Armstrong, Paul and I were doubtless the oldest people on Stage 5! Nancy Sinatra, Bobby Denver, Claudia Martin (Dean’s daughter) Pamela Tiffin, Jimmy (James) Darren, and Ellen McRae (later she became Ellen Burstyn and won the Academy award for
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore),
Tina Louise, we’re all teenagers. Some of the beach kids were real preschoolers and fun to be around.

According to Woody, Paul was a consummate pro on the set.

I believe anyone you ever speak to regarding his high degree of professionalism was that he possessed that one and most vital virtue:
he learned his lines!
It makes it so much easier for everyone involved in any scene when the actors know their cues, their lines, and their movements on the set. Paul was a master at it. To the best of my recollection, he and I never did a re-take during the entire filming of “For Those Who Think Young.” (If history ever proves me wrong on this, it’ll be because I goofed — and not Paul.)

He knew the movie business far better than myself and the only agitation I ever saw in him was identical to that of other cast principals when we had to stand and wait and wait and wait while another couple or group were being filmed and there were interruptions of one kind or another. Standing around and watching a scene being shot can be unnerving to everyone if there are a lot of retakes or technical problems. That’s why Paul and I seemed to whiz right through our scenes — secretly watching him like a hawk enabled me to pick up and learn from him those very expressive gestures, eye movements, facial expressions, and all that sort of thing. He was, to use an old vaudevillian definition, a real “mugger.” He had eyebrow, facial, and on-set contortions that the camera loved. Watch him in
Bye Bye Birdie
and you’ll see him in rare form.

After the shooting, a few of the cast would go out together for dinner.

The few times we ate at Joe’s he’d always be alone to meet Sue, Woody’s wife at the time. Woody had one stand thing about Paul that he observed during their time together, and that was his diet. Paul told Woody of a quiet and small restaurant on Melrose named “Joe’s Steak House.” It was not far from Paramount’s main gate. They usually met at Joe’s for dinner, maybe five or six times during the time of filming. The standout part was how he raved about how great Joe’s steaks were. But first the waiter would bring a large tray of huge ice-cold sliced raw onions, ice-cold bright red thick-sliced tomatoes, and king sized, ice-cold green, pitted olives, all in a row on ice-cold beds of romaine lettuce. There were actually ice cubes adorning the platter.

Well, Paul would immediately attack that platter. Without fail, he’d continue to extoll the great steaks we’ll have just ordered, but he never gave up digging into those raw onions, tomatoes, olives, and romaine. Soon the big, thick, steaks arrived. Paul would take one or two bites of that while still devouring the ice-cold stuff, and then suddenly looking sad, he’d ask for a doggie-bag into which the waiter placed his steak.

According to Woody, neither he nor any human being who ever had dinner with Paul Lynde during the filming, ever saw him finish a steak. He told everybody on the set about Joe’s Steak House and how terrific the sirloins were, and all the times he would be broadcasting to the world at large about the fantastic steaks at Joe’s, but then proceeded to gorge himself with all the ice-cold goodies and never left room in his stomach for the main course. They wondered how he ever really knew if Joe’s steaks were so sensational. He never ate one!

Paul was not big on small talk. However, he became fascinated, one night at dinner, when he learned about Woody’s background. Woody recalled:

I had been a U.S. Marine Corps pilot in a couple wars, and Paul seemed stunned to discover and was quite surprised at that. In turn, I was surprised when he expressed great interest in the Corps and knew so much about it. I was a replacement pilot in Gregory “Pappy” Boyington’s “Blacksheep” Squadron. And I hasten to say I was no hero. I was selected to fly fighter planes in that squadron long after the “Blacksheep” had captured the verve and nerve of Boyington’s antics and subsequent adoration by the public. Paul displayed honest amazement when he discovered I flew Jet fighters in Korea also.

Paul showed genuine surprise that I had done these things. Other than himself and Howard W. Koch, Jr., who produced the film, I don’t believe anybody else in the entire cast or production group ever knew I was a military Marine Corps flyer. Paul wanted to know how cold it was in the jets, did they have heaters up at thirty thousand feet, and how many times were you hit by anti-aircraft fire — all such as that.

Paul was already well up the ladder to stardom, and I was a mere cabaret lounge performer-host so as quickly as it dawned upon me that the reason he was climbing by leaps and bounds up that ladder of screen and television success was that he knew everybody else’s lines in the script as well as his own. The guy was a gem to work with.

As hilarious and memorable Paul’s presence on television always was, he was referred to as “what’s his name, that funny guy.” He had been appearing in several movies including the romantic comedy
Send Me No Flowers,
which starred Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony Randall. In that movie, Rock Hudson played a hypochondriac who thinks he is dying. He makes an appointment to buy a cemetery plot. He meets with Mr. Adkins, played by Paul, who cheerfully tells him, “When you’re ready, we’re ready.”

Paul also costarred in
How Sweet It Is,
with James Garner and Debbie Reynolds. He was also appearing on some of the most popular sitcoms of that time: He played a nearsighted doctor on
The Munsters;
he was the singing Mountie on
F-Troop
whose motto was, “We always get our man;” he also made appearance on
That Girl, I Dream of Jeanie,
and
The Beverly Hillbillies.
People were imitating him with some of his signature lines, like, “Oh My Go-o-o-o-odness” and “Tha-a-a-t’s Disgu-u-u-usting.” With so much exposure, he just couldn’t understand why no one could remember his name. That is until he would be a guest on a very different kind of television show, one that would catapult him to overnight fame.