Paul Lynde

Paul Edward Lynde (; June 13, 1926 – January 11, 1982) was an American comedian, voice artist, actor and TV personality. A noted character actor with a distinctively campy and snarky persona that often poked fun at his barely in-the-closet homosexuality, Lynde was well known for his roles as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched and the befuddled father Harry MacAfee in Bye Bye Birdie. He was also the regular "center square" panelist on the game show Hollywood Squares from 1968 to 1981, and he voiced three Hanna-Barbera productions; he was Templeton the gluttonous rat in Charlotte's Web, neighbor Claude Pertwee on Where's Huddles? and The Hooded Claw in The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. 2Early life Paul Lynde was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, the son of Hoy Coradon and Sylvia Bell (Doup) Lynde. He graduated from Mount Vernon High School in 1944, and then studied drama at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where his fellow students included Cloris Leachman, Charlotte Rae, Patricia Neal, Jeffrey Hunter and Claude Akins. At Northwestern, he joined the Upsilon chapter of Phi Kappa Sigma and is listed among the more famous members of the fraternity. He graduated in 1948 and moved to New York City, where he initially worked as a stand-up comic. 2Career Lynde made his Broadway debut in the hit revue New Faces of 1952 in which he co-starred with fellow newcomers Eartha Kitt, Robert Clary, Alice Ghostley, and Carol Lawrence. In his monologue from that revue, the "Trip of the Month Club," Lynde portrayed a man on crutches recounting his misadventures on the African safari he took with his late wif