In a game of theatrical tic-tac-toe over who has the right to tell comic Paul Lynde's story on stage, a West Hollywood writer-actor has put a big X in the path of a small San Francisco theater company that had scheduled its own solo-actor take on the "Hollywood Squares" celebrity.

"When we first started, I didn't do my homework and we were told, 'You have to have permission to do this.' " Airington said his show, last seen locally at the Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park, is based on research he did, including interviews with "Hollywood Squares" host Peter Marshall, Karen Valentine, Cloris Leachman, Kay Ballard and Andy Williams.When all said and done, the dating couple went out on a dream vacation which was paid by the producers.Occasionally, the bachelor would ask questions to three bachelorettes.He graduated from Mount Vernon High School in 1944, and then studied drama at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where his fellow students included Cloris Leachman, Charlotte Rae, Patricia Neal, Jeffrey Hunter and Claude Akins.At Northwestern, he joined the Upsilon chapter of Phi Kappa Sigma and is listed among the more famous members of the fraternity.The premise of the show, he said, is that Lynde is trying to tell his life's story, but keeps getting interrupted by game-show questions from Marshall, who did voiceovers for the production.An Exit Theatre spokesman, Gary Carr, said Friday that Owens' play is very different: instead of impersonating Lynde, he was going to play himself talking about Lynde's life and pop-cultural milieu, and how Lynde's television persona influenced him when he was growing up.