TV URBAN LEGEND: Paul Lynde was contractually guaranteed the center square on Hollywood Squares.
As I discussed in a recent Movie Legends Revealed about the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan actor who negotiated himself out of being credited in the film period, actors and celebrities will often negotiate the strangest things into their contracts with shows and films. I have covered a number of them over the years in various Legends Revealeds, like how Elvis Presley, at one point, would require songwriters to credit Presley as co-writer of the songs and get half of their songwriting copyright in exchage for agreeing to do their songs (one artist famously refused to get credit himself, then, if he was forced to share with Presley) or how Roy Huggins was such a powerful TV writer and producer at one point that his studo contract stipulated that even his pseudonym would get his own parking space!
However, a number of these rumored clauses have turned out to be false over the years, like how John Patrick Shanley allegedly had a clause that his screenplays could never be altered (not true), or that the real life Sergeant York would only option his life story if Gary Cooper agreed to play him (also not true). That is the same case with a longstanding legend that says that Paul Lynde, the longtime famous "center square" on Hollywood Squares from 1968 until the show's first run ended in 1981 (Lynde passed away in 1982).
WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT THE CENTER SQUARE?
Hollywood Squares was a very popular game show created by Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley that debuted in 1966. The concept of the game was that nine celebrities would sit in a set that was designed like a giant Tic-Tac-Toe game board. Contestants would call on the celebrities, who would then be asked a trivia question. The celebrity would first give a joke answer, and then an actual answer. The contestant had to agree or disagree with the celebrity. If the contestant's answer was correct (like if they said "Disagree" and the celebrity got the trivia question wrong) than the contestant would get the square. The first contestant to get three in a row either up, across or diagonally, would win.
Well, if you know anything about the game of Tic-Tac-Toe, you know that the most strategically important position on the board is the center square (and, to be frank, if you are playing a traditional game of Tic-Tac-Toe and not one where the squares are determined by celebrities answering trivia questions, if you go first and pick the center square, you really should always at least force a stalemate) and the same was true for Hollywood Squares, so whoever was in the center square would be the one who would be called on the most, and thus get the most airtime. When the show debuted, Academy Award-winning actor Ernest Borgnine was the center square, being probably the most famous of the celebrities on the panel. Over the next few months, Buddy Hackett, Bill Bixby, George Jessel, Marty Allen, Glenn Ford, Shelley Berman and Vera Miles all took a turn in the center square. Eventually, Hackett became the regular center square for the rest of the year and all of 1967.
Everything changed in 1968. Paul Lynde had been a regular panelist on Hollywood Squares since 1966, as he was a popular character actor at the time, perhaps best known at the time for a series of appearances on the TV show, Bewitched, as Uncle Arthur, Samantha Stephens' warlock uncle, but as Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall later recalled, "A writer on the show, Bill Armstrong, became producer and he said, ‘Let’s write jokes for Paul Lynde.’ And that changed everything. I can remember the first joke ever written for him was, ‘Paul, why do motorcyclists wear leather?’ ‘Because chiffon wrinkles.’ It was wonderful. He was a guest but he was made a regular and we put him in the center square.”
Lynde's racy one-liners soon made him a much bigger star as a panelist than he ever was as a character actor...
He even won an Emmy Award for his role on the show (and was nominated for three years in a row).
DID PAUL LYNDE HAVE TO BE CENTER SQUARE?
It is true that Paul Lynde had a number of contractual disputes with the show, but it was strictly about money, not his role on the show. As Marshall also recalled, “There was a favored nations clause; everybody got the same amount, which was, I think, $750. You’ve got to remember that this was 1966 or ’67. So that’s pretty good. He read this article and said he wanted the same amount and they said no. So he left the show for a year. I then called him and said, ‘Paul, why don’t you come in? This is silly.’ The changed his contract and he got more money. He deserved it.”
According to a 1985 lawsuit dealing with the 1980 season of the series, by the end of the run, Lynde was making $9000 for every two shows, and $16,000 if he did all five shows in a week (like most game shows, they taped five shows in a day, so I have no idea why he would ever only tape two of the five shows, but I guess he had the opportunity, at least). However, nothing was mentioned about him having to be center stage and as the show's creator, Heatter once noted, "We never had anyone competing to be in the center square."
Simply put, Lynde never had to have a center square clause written into his contract because he was already making the most money on the show by far (by 1980, only he and Marshall had contracts outside standard pay), so obviously the show wouldn't want to NOT have him be the center square, as you'd be paying him to do LESS on the show.
The legend is...
STATUS: False
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