Billy Eichner has announced his latest undertaking, stepping into the role of gay comic actor Paul Lynde in a new biopic titled Man in a Box.Paul Lynde began his career on Broadway, scoring a breakout role as Mr.
MacAfee in the original production of Bye Bye Birdie. Lynde won rave reviews for his portrait of a neurotic father, and moved on to a career in television thereafter.
He had another hit with a recurring role as the flamboyant Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, and later, became a TV icon playing as the center square on the game show Hollywood Squares.
As a popular actor in the 1960s and 1970s, Lynde found himself in an odd position, never able to openly live as a gay man, but often playing “coded” gay characters or using wink-at-the-camera.