The mad, sad, totally fab life of (almost closeted) Paul Lynde.

HOLLYWOOD SQUARES -- Episode 14 -- Aired 10/21/73 -- Pictured: Paul Lynde (Photo by NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

“I’ll take Paul Lynde.”

Not so very long ago, a lifetime ago, those words took Americans somewhere wicked. In the ’70s, if that sentence was uttered by a contestant on Hollywood Squares, lights would flash around the center cube in…