Edd Byrnes (born Edward Byrne Breitenberger; July 30, 1932 – January 8, 2020) was an American actor, best known for his starring role in the television series 77 Sunset Strip. He also was featured in the 1978 film Grease as television teen-dance show host Vince Fontaine, and was a charting recording artist with "Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)" (with Connie Stevens).
Early life
Byrnes was born Edward Byrne Breitenberger in New York City, New York, the son of Mary (Byrne) and Augustus "Gus" Breitenberger.[1] He had two siblings, Vincent and Jo-Ann. When he was 13, his father died.[2] He then dropped his last name in favor of "Byrnes" based on the name of his maternal grandfather, Edward Byrne, a fireman.[3]
Byrnes developed the urge to act at high school but did not seriously consider it until after he had tried a number of different jobs, such as driving an ambulance, roofing and selling flowers.[4] At 17, he found work as a photographer's model, which led to an introduction to work as a prostitute. In his memoirs, he described this as a "strange
world... Art, wealth, sadism, limousines, sex for money, theater and fine restaurants.”[5]
Career
Early acting career
In 1956, Byrnes got an unpaid job in a summer stock theatre company in Connecticut, the Litchfield Community Playhouse. He soon began appearing in their plays as an actor. Byrnes tried to get roles in Broadway theatre productions, but had no luck. In 1956, he was cast in an episode of the Crossroads TV program. Byrnes also appeared in episodes of the late-50s series Wire Service and Navy Log.
Also in 1957, Byrnes signed a three-year contract with John Carroll of Clarion Pictures.[8]
Byrnes tested for roles in the films Bernadine and Until They Sail but did not get them.[9] A contemporary report described him as "a Tab Hunter type."[10] However he did guest star on an episode of Cheyenne made by Warner Bros. The studio liked Byrnes' work and signed him to a long term contract in May 1957.[11]
Warner Bros.
Warners started off Byrnes' contract by assigning him to a comic role in The Deep Six (1958).[12] He also appeared in episodes of Cheyenne, The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna and Colt .45. In 1958 he appeared (credited as Edward Byrnes) as Benji Danton on Cheyenne in the episode titled "The Last Comanchero."
Byrnes was cast in Girl on the Run, a pilot for a detective show starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Byrnes played contract killer Kenneth Smiley who continually combed his hair – Byrnes said this was an idea of his which the director liked and kept in.[14] Around this time Byrnes decided to change his acting name from "Edward" to "Edd". "I just dreamed it up one day," he said. "Edward is too formal and there are lots of Eddies."[4]
The show aired in October 1958[15] and was so popular Warners decided to turn it into a TV series 77 Sunset Strip.[4] Byrnes' character became an immediate national teen sensation, prompting the producers to make Byrnes a regular cast member. They transformed Kookie from a hitman into a parking valet at Dino's Lodge who helped as a private investigator. Zimbalist Jr. explained the situation to the audience:
We previewed this show, and because Edd Byrnes was such a hit, we decided that Kookie and his comb had to be in our series. So this week, we'll just forget that in the pilot he went off to prison to be executed.
— From the pre-credit sequence for the episode "Lovely Lady, Pity Me"
Kookie's recurring character—a different, exciting look that teens of the day related to—was the valet-parking attendant who constantly combed his piled-high, greasy-styled teen hair, often in a windbreaker jacket, who worked part-time at the so-called Dean Martin's Dino's Lodge restaurant, next door to a private-investigator agency at 77 Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Kookie frequently acted as an unlicensed, protégé detective who helped the private eyes (Zimbalist and Roger Smith) on their cases, based upon "the word" heard from Kookie's street informants. Kookie called everybody "Dad" (as in "Sure thing . . . Dad") and was television's homage to the "Jack Kerouac" style of cult-hipster of the late 1950s.[16]
The show became the most popular one in the country.[17] To the thrill of teen viewers, Kookie spoke a jive-talk "code" to everyone, whether you understood him or not, and Kookie knew, better than others, "the word on the street." Although the Kookie character was at least several years older than Jim Stark, James Dean's character in the film Rebel Without a Cause, Byrnes exuded a similar sense of cool. Kookie was also the progenitor of Henry Winkler's The Fonz character of the Happy Days series (switch hot rod for motorcycle; same hair and comb). By April 1959 Byrnes was among the most popular young actors in the country.[18]
"I was a nobody," said Byrnes. "Now I'm dragging in over 400 letters a week and I'm a name."[19]
Kookie's constant onscreen tending of his ducktail haircut led to many jokes among comedians of the time, and it resulted in the 1959-charted (13 weeks) 'rap' style recording, "Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)", recorded with actress and recording artist Connie Stevens, and which reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.[20][21] The song also appeared on the Edd Byrnes album, entitled (what else) Kookie. He and Stevens appeared together on ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom. During the run of 77 Sunset Strip, Byrnes, as the "Kookie" character, was a popular celebrity, and Byrnes received fan-mail volume that reached 15,000 letters a week, according to Picture Magazine in 1961, rivaling most early rock-recording stars of the day.[citation needed]
Clashes with Warners
Warners put him in the second lead of a Western, Yellowstone Kelly (1959); he supported Clint Walker, star of another Warners show, Cheyenne. It was a minor success at the box office.[22]
"I'm not studying," said Byrnes at the time. "Why should I? I get all my experience in front of the camera. You get in front of the camera every day and you've got to learn."[4]
Byrnes walked off the show in the second season, demanding a bigger part and higher pay. In November 1959 Warners put him on suspension. They eventually offered $750 a week but he refused. In April 1960 they came to terms and Byrnes went back to work.[23][24]
Instead he guest starred on Lawman. Byrnes made a cameo as Kookie in Surfside Six and Hawaiian Eye, a 77 Sunset Strip spin off. He bought a story for Warners, Make Mine Vanilla, but it was not made.[26] He threatened to punch a photographer who was trying to take a photo of him getting a marriage license.[27] He did some summer stock in 1962 with his wife.[28]
Although Byrnes was a popular celebrity, the years of unfortunate "Kookie" typecasting led him to ultimately buy out his television contract with Warner Brothers to clear his way for films—though it was accomplished too late to allow Byrnes to capitalize on feature-length-cinema projects based upon his established television-series fame.
Post-Warner Bros.
In August 1963 Byrnes bought up the remaining ten months of his contract with Warner Bros and left Sunset Strip. "No more hipster image for me," said Byrnes. "From now on I'd like to establish myself as a movie star."[29]
Back in the US he made a pilot for a TV series, Kissin Cousins, based on the Elvis Presley film Kissin' Cousins (1964) with Byrnes to play the lieutenant played by Presley in the film.[31][32] It did not go to series. Byrnes starred in a beach party movie financed by Corman, Beach Ball (1965).[33]Chris Noel while working on Beach Ball with Byrnes, complained about his behavior.[34] He was in episodes of Mister Roberts, Honey West, and Theatre of Stars and did Picnic, Bus Stop, Sunday in New York, Sweet Bird of Youth and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on stage in stock.[35][36]
The shadow of Kookie hung over him. "People think that's the only role you can play," he said in 1966. "Producers and directors still think of me as the kid I played on the Strip. I've been offered other series but they've still wanted to cast me as the same kid."[37]
Back in the US he worked mostly in TV: episodes of Mannix, Love, American Style, The Virginian, Adam-12, and The Pathfinders. He was also in the TV movies The Silent Gun (1969) and The Gift of Terror.
Byrnes was in the "Duo-Vision" horror film Wicked, Wicked in 1973, and as a TV interviewer in the David Essex film Stardust (1974).
Byrnes' son by Asa Maynor is Logan Byrnes, a television news anchor for KUSI-TV News in San Diego, California, since 2018, after performing the same duty at KTTV in Los Angeles. Before 2016 he was at Fox Connecticut since 2008.[42]
Byrnes died of natural causes on January 8, 2020, at his Santa Monica home.[43][44][5]
Legacy
As a tribute to his enduring celebrity and his iconic "Kookie" character, Byrnes has ranked #5 in TV Guide's list of "TV's 25 Greatest Teen Idols" (23 January 2005 issue). In 1996, he wrote an autobiography with Marshall Terrill entitled Kookie No More.[5]
Byrnes appeared during the Memphis Film Festival in June 2014, in which he was reunited with his former Yellowstone Kelly co-star Clint Walker.[45]
Filmography
Fear Strikes Out (1957) as Boy in Car Assisting Jimmy Up Stairway (uncredited)
^Schallert, E. (1957, May 14). Author favors glenn ford for 'quicksand'; skouras project afoot. Los Angeles Times (1923–Current File) Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/167113681
^By THOMAS M PRYOR Special to The New York Times. (1957, May 14). PALANCE IN MOVIE BACKED BY MEXICO. New York Times (1923–Current File) Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/114243188
^Schallert, E. (1957, Jul 02). Cornel wilde readies hungary saga; george sanders stars abroad. Los Angeles Times (1923–Current File) Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/167078820
