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EDD “KOOKIE” BYRNES

“Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)”

(Irving Taylor)

Warner Brothers 5047

No. 4    May 11 , 1959

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Born in the city of “The Big Time” in thirty-third year on the penultimate day of the month of independence

(decoded: b. July 30, 1933/New York City), with the unhip moniker of Edward Breitenberger, was this ginch

who made the scene, like weekly, on this tip-top TV trip, 77 Sunset Strip.   Fillin’ the void as Gerald Lloyd

Kookson III, the dad would like lay wheels flat, perpendicular, and nowheres square at Dino’s, a grease and

bug juice palace.  You dig?  Kookie was a skizard with a comb and had a thing for his hair and females with

like grooves to ride.  Chicks were flippin’ their wigs and saying he was the maxium, the utmost, and like

dreamsville.  And then in 1963, the bubble burst, viewers had grown weary of Edd and his “kookie-isms”;

you recall, like “piling up some Z’s” (decoded: sleeping),”a dark seven” (decoded: a depressing week)…

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Kookie has admitted to be a reformed alcoholic.  Last spotted, late in 1988, in Waldorf, Maryland, where he

was called upon to dedicate a drug and rehabilitaion clinic, Kook told a reporter for UPI, “I was the last

person to know I had a disease.  It was hard to admit I had a problem when I still had money, property,

prestige.  How can I have a problem when I’m driving my new Mercedes, and it’s paid for, and I have a

house in Malibu.?”  Byrnes, reportedly, won his freedom from his habits in ’84.

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Edd had five good years with 77 Sunset Strip but found it hard to market or to shake this image once the

series had been mothballed.    He played some secondary roles in some B-grade flicks (The Secret Invasion. 

1964; Beach Ball, 1965) and moved to Europe where he appeared in such “spaghette westerns” as

Winchester per un Massacro ( 1967) and Ammazzo e Torno ( 1967).   Kook has been spotted more recently

guesting on serials, The Hardy Boys and Police Woman and appeared in Wicked Wicked (1973), Stardust

(1975), and with Frankie, Annette, and CONNIE STEVENS Back to the Beach ( 1988).

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Only four 45s, an EP, and a lone lp were ever issued by Mr. Kook.  Aside from the isolated hit (featuring the

dueting abilities of Connie Stevens) only the immediate follow-up, “Like I Love You” billed as by “Edd

Byrnes and Friend” (the “friend” being JOANIE SOMMERS), managed to chart nationally.