Edward Byrnes
Encyclopedia
- This article concerns the actor. For the actor/director, see Edward BurnsEdward BurnsEdward Fitzgerald Burns is an American actor, film producer, writer and director.-Early life:Burns was born in Woodside, Queens, New York, the son of Molly , a federal agency manager, and Edward J. Burns, a public relations spokesman and police officer. He was raised a Roman Catholic...
.
- For the Irish comedian, see Ed ByrneEd ByrneEd Byrne is a Perrier Award-nominated, Irish stand-up comedian, voice over artist and actor. He has presented television shows Uncut! Best Unseen Ads and Just for Laughs, and is a regular guest on various television panel games...
.
Edd Byrnes (born July 30, 1933) is an American actor known for his starring role in the television series 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
. He also was featured in the 1978 film Grease
Grease (film)
Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
as television teen-dance show host, Vince Fontaine, and a single-charted recording artist with "Kookie, Kookie -- Lend Me Your Comb" (with Connie Stevens
Connie Stevens
Connie Stevens is an American actress and singer, best known for her roles in the television series Hawaiian Eye and other TV and film work.-Early life:...
).
Early life
Born as Edward Byrne Breitenberger, he shared an impoverished and unhappy childhood in New York City with brother Vincent and sister Jo-Ann. When he was 13, his father died. He then dropped his last name in favor of "Byrnes" based on the name of his maternal grandfather, a fireman.Screen career
His time enduring and most famous role was as Gerald Lloyd "Kookie" Kookson III, on the ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
series 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
. He played a continually hair-combing serial killer in the pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
, Girl on the Run
Girl on the Run
For the Victoria Silvstedt album, see Girl on the Run .Girl on the Run is a 1958 private detective film starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Erin O'Brien and Edd Byrnes. The film is in truth, although not legal fact, based on characters and situations created by writer Roy Huggins in a series of 1940s...
, but he was so popular (a national teen sensation), as a result that the producers brought him back the following week as a regular cast member in the role of a chrome-plated hot rod driving, hipster-talking ("Kookie-talk") parking valet and sometime protege private investigator. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is an American actor known for his starring roles in the television series 77 Sunset Strip and The F.B.I. He is also known as recurring character "Dandy Jim Buckley" in the series Maverick and as the voice behind the character Alfred Pennyworth in Batman: The Animated Series...
explained the situation to the audience:
Kookie's recurring character -- a different, exciting look to which teens of the day related —- the valet parking attendance 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 private investigator agency at 77 Sunset Strip—frequently acted as an unlicensed, protege 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. To the thrill of teen viewers, Kookie talked a jive-talk "code" to everyone, whether you understood him or not, and Kookie knew better than others "the word on the street." Some say the Kookie character borrowed much from James Dean
James Dean
James Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...
's "Rebel", and was the progenitor to The Fonz of the Happy Days
Happy Days
Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....
series (switch hot rod for motorcycle; same hair, comb and a leather jacket).
Kookie's constant on screen tending of his ducktail haircut led to many jokes among comedians of the time, and resulted in the 1960 charted 'rap' style recording (8 weeks), "Kookie, Kookie--Lend Me Your Comb", recorded with actress and recording artist Connie Stevens
Connie Stevens
Connie Stevens is an American actress and singer, best known for her roles in the television series Hawaiian Eye and other TV and film work.-Early life:...
, and which reached #27 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
. 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
The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom
The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom is a half-hour variety show that aired on ABC from October 3, 1957 to June 23, 1960, starring the young singer Pat Boone and a host of top-name guest stars. The program was of course sponsored by Chevrolet...
. During the run of the 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
series, Byrnes, as the "Kookie" character, was an extremely popular celebrity (Elvis Presley-level national attention), and Byrnes received fan mail volume that reached 15,000 letters a week, according to Picture Magazine in 1961, and rivaled most early rock recording stars in the day.
Byrnes walked off the show in the second season demanding a bigger part and bigger pay, to which the producers eventually agreed.
Owing to restrictions in his Warner Brothers television contract, he was forced to turn down film roles in Ocean's Eleven
Ocean's Eleven (1960 film)
Ocean's 11 is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop....
(1960), Rio Bravo (1959), North to Alaska
North to Alaska
North to Alaska is a 1960 comedic western movie directed by Henry Hathaway and John Wayne . It starred Wayne along with Stewart Granger, Ernie Kovacs, Fabian and Capucine....
(1960) and The Longest Day
The Longest Day (film)
The Longest Day is a 1962 war film based on the 1959 history book The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, about "D-Day", the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, during World War II....
(1962). However he appeared in the Warners films Darby's Rangers (1957) (replacing Tab Hunter
Tab Hunter
Tab Hunter is an American actor, singer, former teen idol and author who has starred in over forty major films.-Background:...
), Marjorie Morningstar
Marjorie Morningstar (film)
Marjorie Morningstar is a 1958 melodrama film based on the 1955 novel of the same name. The film, released by Warner Bros. and directed by Irving Rapper tells a fictional coming of age story about a young Jewish girl in New York City in the 1950s...
(1958), Up Periscope
Up Periscope
Up Periscope is a 1959 World War II drama starring James Garner as a Navy frogman fighting the Japanese. The supporting cast includes Edmond O'Brien, Andra Martin, and Alan Hale, Jr.. The film was written by Richard H. Landau and Robb White from White's novel, produced by Aubrey Schenk, and...
and Yellowstone Kelly
Yellowstone Kelly
Yellowstone Kelly is a 1959 Warner Bros Western Technicolor movie based upon a novel by Heck Allen, with a screenplay by Burt Kennedy starring Clint Walker as Yellowstone Luther Kelly, and directed by Gordon Douglas...
(both in 1959). Byrne tested for the role of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
in PT 109
PT 109 (film)
PT 109 is a 1963 biographical film which depicts the actions of John F. Kennedy in command of Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 as an officer of the United States Navy during World War II. The movie was adapted by Vincent Flaherty and Howard Sheehan from the book PT 109: John F. Kennedy in World War II by...
but the President preferred Cliff Robertson
Cliff Robertson
Clifford Parker "Cliff" Robertson III was an American actor with a film and television career that spanned half of a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie Charly...
, who was eventually cast for the role.
Though a popular celebrity, and yet not a particularly gifted actor, the years of unfortunate "Kookie" typecasting led Brynes to ultimately buy-out his television contract with Warners 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
Byrnes was featured as one of the convict commandos in 1964 in Roger CormanRoger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
's The Secret Invasion
The Secret Invasion
The Secret Invasion is a 1964 Eastmancolor war film directed by Roger Corman that was filmed in Yugoslavia. In World War II, convicts are recruited by the Allies for an extremely hazardous mission...
. In 1965 he played Dick Martin in Beach Ball. Since then he has appeared in many television programs and movies including several Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
s. He played the role of the Dick Clark-like dance-show host Vince Fontaine, host of National Bandstand, in the 1978 movie Grease
Grease (film)
Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
, and Ross Coleman in 1989 in Troop Beverly Hills
Troop Beverly Hills
Troop Beverly Hills is a 1989 American comedy film. Produced by Weintraub Entertainment Group and directed by Jeff Kanew, it starred Shelley Long, Craig T...
.
As a tribute to his enduring celebrity and his iconic "Kookie" character, Edd Byrnes has ranked #5 in TV Guide's list of "TV's 25 Greatest Teen Idols" (23 January 2005 issue).
Byrnes wrote an autobiography in 1996 entitled "Kookie No More."
His son by Asa Maynor is Logan Byrnes, a news anchor for Fox Connecticut
WTIC-TV
WTIC-TV, channel 61, is a television station in Hartford, Connecticut. Owned by the Tribune Company, WTIC-TV is a charter affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company...
since 2008.