Edd Byrnes: Kookie No More [Hardcover]

Edd Byrnes (Author), Marshall Terrill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1996

In 1960, Edd Byrnes was receiving more fan mail each week than any actor in the history of the Warner Brothers studio, more than Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart or James Cagney at the height of their popularity. His role as the jive-talking, hair-combing "Kookie" on TV's 77 Sunset Strip made him the hottest young star in Hollywood. His recording, "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb," was a hit single on Billboard Magazine's charts. His fame spread across the globe, and only Elvis Presley could claim to be more popular. Byrnes palled around with Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, RObert Mitchum, Natalie Wood, Michael Caine and WIlliam Holden. Some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood seduced him. Others tried. Those were wild and heady days for Edward Byrne Breitenberger, a poor kid from the streets of New York. The pinnacle that Byrnes reached was so high that his free fall into the depths of cocaine and alcohol addiction was that much more devastating. Edd Byrnes: "Kookie" No More is a wide-open tell-it-ile-it-was autobiography. Byrnes writes with wrenching candor, naming names and holding nothing back. He reveals the bad times along with the exhilarating, great times.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Barricade Books (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569800928
• ISBN-13: 978-1569800928
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #971,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Honesty in it's purest sense of life in the fast lane., August 7, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Edd Byrnes: Kookie No More (Hardcover)

Having enjoyed Edd "kookie" Byrnes in "77 Sunset Strip and again as "The Main Brain" Vince Fontaine in Grease as well as the many other parts he did you can imagine my surprise when we met almost 10 years ago. I thought I really got to know Edd until I read his book. Wow, what an eye opener it was. It took amazing courage to write this book and open his life for all to see. This book gives an open and honest look at life in the fast lane for those in the entertainment industry. The ups and downs. The good times and the bad.Edd, my hat is off to you for sharing your life with all of us,and for putting me in the book.A must read for everyone.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost the Ginchiest, August 30, 2001

By 

Douglas Doepke (Claremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Edd Byrnes: Kookie No More (Hardcover)

Like a kleenex, Hollywood more or less tossed Edd Kookie Byrnes aside when no longer wanted. Following two or three teen-idol glory years, he was left to work the fringes, unable to give up the fast life or celebrity, hoping for another break that for even youthful has-beens seldom comes. Still and all, for a brief moment he was a center of worship and celebrity that very few ever experience. 77 Sunset Strip was a glamorous trend-setting series, the first non-western series I believe to be produced by a movie studio and certainly a welcome contrast to the blander boilerplate of the day. Kookie's character made the show. Teenagers loved him. His easy going smile and hipster lingo were infectious, turning the Sunset Strip into a kind of a Mecca for America's young people, even serving as a site for some of the Vietnam era's earliest clashes with police. Now Byrne's icon is known mainly to those of his own generation grown nostalgic about the past.

I wish I could rate the book more highly, but aside from the harrowing early years before Hollywood, Byrnes (surprisingly) doesn't reveal much about the glory years, especially his sudden disappearance from the limelight. Here the real personal story lies not in Byrnes' later bout with alcohol or courageous recovery, which truth be told is standard celebrity fare since the fast track usually drives its commuters to excess. Instead the real story lies in how Byrnes was blackballed from the studios at the height of his tv career because of contract dispute with Warner Bro's. Like James Garner of the Maverick series, Byrnes bucked his tv contract hoping to make the jump into the steadier, more lucrative world of movie making. Garner made it, Kookie didn't. There's the real story of his professional life and I wish he had shared it with us as generously as he does his bout with the bottle. There's also a cautionary tale to be told about the price of celebrity that only someone like Edd Byrnes, experiencing both meteoric rise and fall, can convey. Come on, Mr. Byrnes, you've earned the right to wax philosophical about your life in show business. Kick back and share it. Meanwhile, somewhere on the sunny side of my soul, it will always be 1959 with Kookie's carefree smile ever there to push back the shadows.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Keep your comb, April 30, 2010

By 

Kona (Emerald City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Edd Byrnes: Kookie No More (Hardcover)

Like every other adolescent in 1958, I was in love with Kookie, the guy who parked the cars and made wise cracks on "77 Sunset Strip." Edd Byrnes' autobiography begins with the almost-requisite miserable childhood, goes on to drug and alcohol addiction, and, of course, includes much carousing with eager groupies. He lived a jet-set lifestyle and rubbed shoulders with everyone who was anyone while being an abject failure as a husband and father.

The book is poorly written and edited. There are commas in wrong places, words missing, and sentences that just don't belong in the same paragraph. He inserts bits of dialogue that have no importance and nearly all of his stories fall flat. I expected there to be behind-the-scenes information about "77," but he mentions it only a handful of times, telling nothing about the filming or his costars.

I kept reading, however, because I was amazed at the ego of this man. Considering that he hasn't been famous for decades, he still considers himself a sought-after actor of great skill and repute. He drops names endlessly and comes across as a shallow hanger-on. Interesting for nostalgia buffs, but ultimately disappointing.