ABOVE: Billy Eichner and Paul Lynde, photos courtesy Eichner’s Facebook page and Wikimedia Commons.
Emmy-nominated actor and “American Horror Story” alum Billy Eichner is currently developing and set to star in a biopic on the life of comedic actor Paul Lynde.
“Man in the Box” will explore the life of Lynde, who rose to prominence in Hollywood for his roles in “Bewitched” and “Bye Bye Birdie,” as well as for being a regular panelist on the game show “Hollywood Squares.”
Although Lynde was never openly gay at the height of his success, his onscreen persona was very flamboyant and Eichner can identify with this aspect of his career. “There’s some overlap, between Paul and I, in that we both had our breakthrough in the industry, as performers, presenting a rather larger-than-life, flamboyant, gay persona on screen,” Eichner told Deadline in an interview.
“Even though I was always very out, Paul was never technically out,” he continued. “But he was as out as you could be at that time, in that he was clearly leaning into a flamboyant persona. Unlike Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, Cary Grant and all these other actors, he wasn’t pretending to be straight. You didn’t see him getting set up on dates with women, or having phony relationships with women, to try to present to the world as a straight man. I think that was very admirable, for the time, and also, if you look at those jokes on ‘Hollywood Squares,’ he comes as close to admitting he’s gay as you possibly can. He’s making thinly veiled, at best, references to gay sex, to finding men attractive, to swinging both ways.”
Eichner said that Lynde’s personal demons and the way they’re highlighted in the film will allow for a more nuanced portrayal of LGBTQ people than audiences have seen in the past.
“He’s a complicated guy, he’s not a martyr or an angel,” Eichner said. “He had terrible substance abuse problems. He could be a real asshole, and again, one of the reasons I think it’s a compelling story is because when we are presented with these biopics about gay people, we’re often seen as martyrs, victims. We’re not seen as fully complex people, emotionally complicated and as messy as anyone else.”
Eichner added that this facet of Lynde’s professional life also draws attention to disparities in the entertainment industry, specifically when it comes to industry members supporting LGBTQ talent and facilitating their success.
“He’s a complicated person, who didn’t always believe in himself, as much as he should have,” Eichner said. “But one has to ask, why? Why didn’t the culture, society, the industry, bolster him the way that it bolstered Woody Allen, or Mel Brooks?… [Lynde] thought of himself as an afterthought, even though he had ‘Hollywood Squares,’ he was funny, made money and was famous. He thought the world would view him as a punch line.”
Eichner said that Lynde’s story speaks to the current landscape for gay actors working in Hollywood and how they are often denied the career longevity and versatility given to their straight counterparts.
“There is no gay Tom Hanks in this country,” Eichner said. “There is no gay Will Ferrell. There’s no gay Steve Carell. There’s no gay Paul Rudd. There’s no gay Kevin Hart. There’s no gay Will Smith. The list goes on and on, and that’s not a coincidence. After a hundred years of making films, it’s not a coincidence. It’s not that they just haven’t been able to find the right gay man, who has enough talent to have a career like that.”
Eichner believes that part of the reason this occurs so frequently is because gay actors are often turned into emblems of social awareness for being openly queer and this advocacy ends up overshadowing and limiting their future career efforts.
“What’s happened is that, when someone comes out of the closet, we celebrate them,” he said. “We applaud them. We put them on the cover of magazines. We say, ‘thank you for living your truth’, and ‘thank you for being brave’ and ‘you’re such a role model for our gay kids.’ And then instantly, that actor gets taken off so many casting lists in the business. This is exactly what happened to Paul, and if it’s still happening today, which I can tell you from my own career, having lived it on the day to day, for almost 20 years now, it happened to Paul in even more extreme ways, and he felt very limited by that.”
And while Eichner is willing to acknowledge the increased visibility of LGBTQ people in the media, he said that the way LGBTQ content is often framed still limits the opportunities for LGBTQ representation to be fully incorporated into the mainstream.
“I think when you do shows that are exclusively LGBTQ+, even when they’re critically acclaimed, they’re put in this niche box,” Eichner said. “Oh, that’s a lovely show, for gay people. Isn’t that nice? Isn’t it great that ‘Pose’ exists? But you have to beg straight people to watch it…[I]t does speak to a lingering fear, about what the audience will accept, who the audience wants to see. Is it economically viable to put gay actors, and gay characters, at the center of a story, and not merely on the fringes?”
Eichner said that he wants to use his starring role in the film to change the predominant narrative of straight actors receiving critical acclaim for their portrayals of LGBTQ individuals.
“One of the main reasons I want to do this is…because gay actors are never, hardly ever, I should say, allowed to play our own gay icons,” Eichner said. “Harvey Milk, Freddie Mercury, Elton John. Where are the gay actors? And it’s not to take anything away from those performances, which were all excellent. But why don’t we get to tell our own stories?…[W]e love the spectacle of rewarding a straight actor, for quote unquote, transforming himself into a gay person.”
However, Eichner said that “Man in the Box” also illustrates the contradictory nature of gender norms in society at large and how this affects how people perceive one another.
“[The film] goes deeper than just the problem of gay actors not getting enough roles,” he said. “That’s a problem that affects 0.00001% of the population. It affects gay actors, you know, which is obviously a very, very niche problem, but here’s what goes deeper and here’s what’s universal about it. The reason that [Lynde] was limited in his options, professionally and creatively, was because he did not present as masculine. And the minute someone does that, they are limited in their options…We accept a masculine actor, playing effeminate, and in fact we’ll reward him for it greatly. And when the opposite happens, when someone’s presented themselves as flamboyant, or more effeminate, as an actor, or as a person, tries to do the opposite, it’s almost thought of as a joke.”
Eichner is also currently working on a gay romantic-comedy film with Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller. He said that his experience working on the production of the film has inspired him to work to alleviate some of the disparities between LGBTQ and straight actors.
“I’m an [executive producer] on that [film],” he shared. “So, I was privy to casting discussions, and I would see when the casting lists were circulating, about which actors to call in for which role. There were so many straight actors on every list to play gay characters. And then, at the beginning before I raised my voice, for the straight characters in the movie, there were never gay actors on the lists for those roles. I saw it with my own eyes. It’s not a two-way street. I’m trying to change that[.]”
Overall, Eichner hopes that his work and push for greater LGBTQ representation helps underscore the value and insight that LGBTQ actors can bring to film portrayals of queer experiences.
“I also think it’s so important for us to be able to tell our own stories, because we have the lived-in experience, to bring the intellectual nuance of it to the screen,” Eichner said. “I don’t have to go sit with 30 gay people and try to find out what it’s like to be gay. I know, and no one knows better than me and my friends. I think we need to stop undervaluing that, the feeling that if a gay person plays a gay person it’s not acting but if a straight person plays a gay person, we give them an Oscar.”
While there is currently no release date for “Man in the Box,” a script written by Edwin Cannistraci has been optioned for the film. Additionally, Eichner and producer Tom McNulty are currently holding meetings to determine the remainder of the production team.
