This would have been his 88th birthday. You didn't want to hear about Louisville again, did you? Since I'm partway through a discussion of Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp," I thought it might be instructive to discuss an example of Intentional Camp who was presented to the public on the pre-cable airways in a completely matter-of-fact way. If you've been paying attention to the stuff I've been writing about pre-Stonewall culture, you will have noticed that I throw the word "knowing" around a lot. In Lynde's case, you knew even if you didn't know, but again, there's knowing something is funny without exactly knowing why. You found NO clues in his obituary, and this even at the beginning of the AIDS decade.
So an investigation in the context of gay culture.
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It's ALL about "knowing." Not that Lynde was alone in this, but he was probably the best example of what the Paley Center for Media calls the 'openly closeted" stars of the pre-Stonewall era:
Despite the entertainment industry being hindered for years in portraying explicitly homosexual characters, those “in the know” were well aware of how this restriction was subverted by the very presence of certain actors and celebrities whose outrageous, decidedly “unmanly” personas could be interpreted as covertly gay. The movies had such jittery, effete ninnies like Edward Everett Horton and Franklin Pangborn, while television offered the likes of glittery, flamboyantly attired Liberace, who rocked the boat in the staid ‘50s by pushing his camp mannerisms to the limit; the mincingly nervous Charles Nelson Riley; and perhaps the most hilariously “sissified” of the bunch, the exasperated, acid-tongued Paul Lynde.
Paul Lynde was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, on June 13 1926. He graduated from the Northwestern University School of Drama,
where his classmates included Jeffrey Hunter, Patricia Neal (the Oscar-winner for
Hud), Charlotte Rae from
The Facts of Life, Jean Hagen from
Singin’ in the Rain, and the Oscar- and Emmy-winning Cloris Leachman. Lynde realized that it was particularly easy for him to get a laugh, so he moved to New York as a comic actor and he got his big break
in the musical "Bye Bye Birdie." Incidentally, Charles Nelson Reilly was in this as well, in a bit part. Lynde was in the movie too.
Yes, the ingenue is indeed Ann-Margret.
Movies and television followed. The movies, regrettably, forgettable, and not exactly exemplar of what I'm trying to do here. But, television. First, he was one of Elizabeth Montgomery's relatives on Bewitched, Uncle Arthur, a warlock. It's a long clip. At your convenience. But this character set the stage for Lynde's tenure as the Center Square in Hollywood Squares. As this review of a 2005 biography of Lynde at salon.com indicates
Indeed, over the course of a 27-year career that was filled with many more downs than ups, Lynde did perhaps more than any other single celebrity to open America’s minds and hearts to the notion of a gay man cracking wise on a daily televised basis. Although he never officially came out, this Trojan horse in a silk shirt was a presence invited into millions of homes at a time when most weren’t exactly hoisting triangle flags for all their neighbors to see. Never merely a limp wrist for hire, somewhat arch and more than a little bitchy, and yet strangely likable, he was deemed “safe” for the whole family’s consumption, which only made his spicy dollops of gay wit dropped into the tasteless gruel that was 1970s TV that much more palatable for middle-American consumption.
How?
Peter Marshall (host): Is the electricity in your house A.C. or D.C.?
Lynde: In my house it’s both.
Marshall: True or false: Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason were recently seen in Central Park dressed as women.
Lynde (frightened): Was anyone else identified?
Marshall: In a recent column, Billy Graham said he would like to urge young people to reserve sex for the only place it belongs. Where is that?
Lynde (frightened): A state prison.
Marshall: Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.
Marshall: True or false...research indicates that Columbus liked to wear bloomers and long stockings.
Lynde: It's not easy to sign a crew up for six months...
Marshall: It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics. What is the other?
Lynde: Tape measures.
This while Anita Bryant was trying to save the children of Miami from the idea we deserved equal rights.
Intentional camp. I think it's really clear.
Oh, and about Louisville. This time it wasn't so much about what it was about last year (the questions? Reconstruction and African Americans, and the changes in American foreign policy between 1919 and 1953) as it was about me. I can get a restaurant to know and like me, starting with the bartenders, all by myself! if you follow Top Chef you'll recognize Ed Lee, who I MET a week ago tonight. I might diary this eventually, but it was nice to learn I have both sage and raconteur in my repertoire.
And now for the stuff that makes this Top Comments:
TOP COMMENTS, June 13, 2014: Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU when you find that proficient comment.
From BadKitties:
This comment by kamarvt in my own diary about what the very rich think of the teabaggers sums up the teabaggers as they really are.
From
CroneWit:
A comment i saw an old tree today left in LilithGardener's diary about violence in the vernacular had me running down the street yelling 'Eureka!'
From your diarist,
Dave in Northridge:
se portland starts a thread and SilentBrook completes the thought in News Corpse's diary about the suddenly non-symbiotic relationship between Fox news and the Republican Party.
Flagged by first-time commenter, diane2, this comment by sagesource is out of recommendability, but still worth reading for its illumination of Obama's greatest flaw (as seen by conservatives). (and thanks, BeninSC)
TOP MOJO, June 12, 2014 (excluding Tip Jars and first comments):
1) Actually not like Dickens' time at all... by Jackson L Haveck — 120
2) We become more and more by TomP — 119
3) Jesus Christ. That is all I could say as I read by worldlotus — 109
4) I moved back to my home area by weezilgirl — 107
5) it's actually more than that by duhban — 95
6) Surely you realize by now by ypochris — 89
7) "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" by polecat — 88
8) Small point that may not be germane, but... by mojo11 — 85
9) I reserve a special category of hate for those by Hanging Up My Tusks — 84
10) Even the judge said she was a "lost soul" and by Mother Mags — 83
11) You know why Jesus has a flat forehead? by BOHICA — 82
12) this is awful by terrypinder — 79
13) Not yet. The job's not finished... by markthshark — 76
14) Mika and her sidekick, Morning Joke, by mjd in florida — 75
15) truancy fines by terrypinder — 70
16) Still keeping the patents for defense by Caelian — 70
17) MB, just go back to some of those very early by Bob Johnson — 70
18) It really is a tragedy... by Sparhawk — 69
19) Thanking them now is cart before the horse by ontheleftcoast — 68
20) Christ, it was only a matter of time, wasn't it? by Blazehawkins — 68
21) "You deserve a (gruel) break today...." by annieli — 66
22) Urm. by OllieGarkey — 64
23) Fscking Awesome by aoeu — 62
24) I have no doubt that the average older Fox viewer by GeorgeBurnsWasRight — 62
25) I want to see Fox News get so small by psnyder — 61
26) That is the way to negotiate - by Thomas Twinnings — 59
27) Should we send them a thank you note? by News Corpse — 59
28) It's all he can say by The Termite — 57
29) The Handmaid's Tale. by Silencio — 56
30) And now, those kids have no mom. by koosah — 56
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