American comedian and actor Paul Lynde was BOTD in 1926. Born in Mount Vernon, Ohio to a working class family, he studied drama at Northwestern University alongside Cloris Leachman and Patricia Neal. He moved to New York City in 1948, making his Broadway debut in the revue New Faces of 1952, co-starring with Eartha Kitt). He had a huge success in the 1960 musical Bye Bye Birdie, also appearing in the 1963 film. A mainstay of American television throughout the 1960s, he is best known for his roles in sitcoms Bewitched and The Munsters and regular appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. He was a contestant on game show Hollywood Squares for 13 years, known for his salty one-liners and thinly-veiled allusions to his homosexuality. In the 1970s, he hosted a series of very camp TV comedy specials, appearing with Betty White, Charo and Donnie & Marie Osmond, and voiced characters in Hanna-Barbera cartoons Cattanooga Cats and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. Gay as a three-dollar bill, Lynde remained in the closet throughout his life. In 1965, he was involved in a scandal after his 24 year-old “friend” James Davidson fell to his death from a hotel window where the two were binge-drinking and “horsing around”. A People magazine interview in 1976 dropped a number of hints about Lynde’s boyfriend Stan Finesmith, who was teasingly described as Lynde’s “suite-mate”. In his later years, Lynde struggled with alcoholism compounding his difficulties in finding work. He died in 1982 aged 55. A number of posthumous biographies revealed his double life as a self-loathing gay man, described as “Liberace without a piano”. His distinctive vocal style and camp delivery has influenced comedians including Seth MacFarlane and Billy Eichner.