Where's Ed Cookie Burns?
paghat
of second-rate modern artists, & for a while a hanger-on character with no
super powers seemingly kept as a pet by the Legion of Super Heros -- where
the hell is he now? Does anyone younger than a Boomer remember what a big
faddish hipster dipster he once was? Did he ever get any press outside of
Teen Beat and Sixteen for little girls who liked to pull a sheet back &
forth between their legs? Has he ever done anything the least bit of
consequence since? Is he still alive? Was or is he as gay as he seemed
except to readers of Teen Beat and Sixteen? Does he have a webpage?
(Google search indicates not.) Did Planet Hollywood before it went under
ever display Cookie's grease-dripping come behind glass? Who was cooler
anyway, Cookie, Maynard G. Krebs, or the Fonz? Okay, the Fonz hands-down,
but wasn't Cookie at least cooler than Hep Cat and Barnie the Purple
Dinosaur?
I would think because he became for a couple years a comic book character
there'd still be some lingering interest in Cookie, or puzzled curiosity
from younger collectors of vintage comics wondering why this cool-man
daddy-o finger-snapper was always at the Legion clubhouse without the
least explanation for his presence. But I could find nothing about him in
a hurry, which is kinda odd.
-paghat the ratgirl
Clave
news:BADSPAMBADpaghat...@soggy72.drizzle.com...
>
> Cookie Burns of 77 Sunset Strip, bad singer of crappy ballads, collector
> of second-rate modern artists, & for a while a hanger-on character with no
> super powers seemingly kept as a pet by the Legion of Super Heros -- where
> the hell is he now? Does anyone younger than a Boomer remember what a big
> faddish hipster dipster he once was? Did he ever get any press outside of
> Teen Beat and Sixteen for little girls who liked to pull a sheet back &
> forth between their legs? Has he ever done anything the least bit of
> consequence since?
He did a cameo on "Married With Children" a few years back. Dunno if that
counts as being "of consequence" though. He's probably doing the "Kansas City
Star" circuit.
Jim
--
not above obscure references
paghat
<ClaviusNo...@gte.net> wrote:
I did more google searches on variations of his name & got a very few more
hits with Kookie Burns, Cookie Byrnes, Kookie Byrnes, Edward Burns, even
Edd Burns -- though almost everything alludes to 77 Sunset Strip, a
novelty song about his famous comb, or his christmas song Yulesville &
other lyrics about his pad or his daddio, & for-sale ads for an album that
has the rather badly chosen Sinatra-like pieces -- all of it about the
1950s & 1960s anyway, very little about what he's been up to since.
He seems to have never decided any special way of spelling it, as Edd & Ed
& Edward all appear, as do Burns & Byrnes, & Cookie and Kookie, seemingly
all correct since it wasn't his real name anyway. He filed a complaint
with the screen guild to stop director Ed Burns (PRIVATE RYAN) from using
the name Ed Burns because Kookie says it's his name in all permutations
(even though Byrnes seems to have been the more commonly spelling for
him). The screen guild agreed, instructing the director to give himself
screen credit only as Edward Burns never as Ed, though his whole life he's
been called Ed. After finding THAT little story through google my
inexplicable fond memory of the daddio hipster cum old fart was rather
deflated. Good thing he didn't choose George Washington for his acting
name or he'd be griping at historians.
I'd still like to know what he's doing right now since he's clearly not acting.
-paghat
Clave
news:BADSPAMBADpaghat...@soggy72.drizzle.com...
<...>
> I'd still like to know what he's doing right now since he's
> clearly not acting.
If I had to guess, I'd say signing autographs at flea markets.
Jim
paghat
> In article <BADSPAMBADpaghat...@soggy72.drizzle.com>, paghat
> says...
> >
> >Cookie Burns of 77 Sunset Strip, bad singer of crappy ballads, collector
> >of second-rate modern artists, & for a while a hanger-on character with no
> >super powers seemingly kept as a pet by the Legion of Super Heros -- where
> >the hell is he now?
>
> Here is a picture of Ed "Kookie" Byrnes in his present day version, holding a
> magazine cover of his 1950s version. Just click the link below:
>
> http://www.geocities.com/mymiscjunk/page292725.html
>
> Arnie
Neato! And he still needs a comb, imagine that! (And the magazine has the
alternate spelling "Edd" -- strange he never quite decided how to spell
his own assumed name).
-paghat
paghat
find anything if one tries enough search engines I guess.
A culinary website
http://recipe-cookie.com/52/276350.shtml
included this:
--QUOTE: Other than his long hair and ever-present comb, the one thing Edd
"Kookie" Byrnes was known for around the 77 Sunset Strip set was the
cookies his mom used to send him from home. According to Cooking with the
Stars--Hollywood's Favorite Recipes, Kookie enjoyed these heavyweight
confections while sipping espresso at a Sunset Strip coffeehouse.
--ENDQUOTE
But I was more interested in Kookie TODAY not back then. Found what
appears to be his agent's website,
http://www.themarketgroup.com/enterntainers.htm
putting the best face forward on what became of Kookie Byrnes -- cocaine
addiction seems more than be a general has-been would appear to be at the
heart of his disappearance -- though the ad-hype that boasts of his having
gotten clean & still works in television:
----QUOTE: 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 the height of their
popularity. His role as the jive-talking hair-combing "Kookie" on TV's 77
Sunset Strip made hime the hottest young star in
Hollywood.
His recording, "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb," was a hit on the
international charts and his fame spread across the globe. Only Elvis
Presley could claim to be more popular at the time.
Those were wild and heady days for Edward Bryne Bretenberger, a poor kid
from the streets of New York. The pinnacle that Brynes reached was so high
that his free fall into the depths of cocaine and alcohol addiction was
that much more devastating.
Edd Byrnes is still acting on television, and on the stage. Today he has
more than 17 years of sobriety and is staying sober one day at a time. He
gives inspirational talks on recovery throughout the world. He makes his
home in Beverly Hills, California. ---ENDQUOTE
The still works in television bit is a stretch. He was somewhere in a 1999
made for TV miniseries called SHAKE RATTLE & ROLL and that's about it.
Other than that, in the 1980s he played himself in a couple sitcoms as a
walk-on guest, & was three times in Murder She Wrote playing different
characters.
There are lots of lyrics sites for Kookie's really silly novelty records
about his comb, or his pad, or having a cool yule, all for the early
1960s. But the winner is the Mack David/Howie Horwitz composition
performed by Kookie & Joanie Sommers. It goes:
Joanie: Kookie, I like this. Can I have another dime for the Juke box?
Kookie: Dingle, Dangle, doll.
Kookie: Well, the notes are round, let's pound the ground.
Joanie: You mean you want to dance with me?
Kookie: Your blip has hit my radar screen.
Joanie: You're so romantic. Honestly.
Kookie: Erase the space, give me some face.
Joanie: You mean you want to kiss me now?
Kookie: Mmmmmmm. This is my week for togetherness.
Joanie: Like Wow!
Kookie: Know what, doll?
Joanie: No, what?
Kookie: You flip me.
Joanie: Me too.
Kookie: Come on, let's wing it.
Joanie: I'm wingin'.
Kookie: I'm charged.
Joanie: I'm vibratin'.
Kookie: Oh!
Joanie: Kookie, you're my jukebox Romeo.
Kookie: Mmmmm, I'll buy that---and you're my Julie.
Joanie: Don't say you care unless you do.
Kookie: I've lost my heart and comb to you.
Joanie: Kookie, am I ginchy?
Kookie: That's for squares, baby---you're the skizziest!
Looking for evidence of a post-early-sixties acting career for Kookie
Byrnes, I find he was in a Philipino thriller NO WITNESS in 1986 -- he's
one of the extra characters in a few other thrillers about this time but
nothing anyone ever heard of & nothing that made him a lead. His rolls
were pathetically small for unnamed characters in PARTY LINE (1988) in
which he plays a waiter in one of those pathetic walk-ons, & BACK TO THE
BEACH (1987) in which he plays a valet. As acting careers go, even a
beginner would probably have counted the 1980s as a complete wash -- for a
guy who used to be a major international fad for saying "daddio" &
snapping his fingers, it's going from popular cruddiness to completely off
the map. It looks like his only significant role ever in his attempted
film career was as Vince Fontain in GREASE (1979) -- probably not a
coincidence that he also played a character named Vince in 1957 in his
very first film, REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS. Other than GREASE -- his "comeback"
& "farewell" rolled into one -- Kookie's only major work ever remains the
parking attendant in 77 Sunset Strip where he gained the name "Kookie".
When that gig was over, even having been so wildly popular in the earliest
1960s, by the late 1960s he scored only a few secondary film roles in
Spanish productions.
A "Where are the now" website answered some of the questions & had about
Kookie when he perversely popped back into my memory. That page has a long
url & won't fit on one line, but anyone who cares can put it back
together:
http://www.biography.com/cgi-bin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//www.biography.com/magazine/biomag/ebyrnes.html
JP was it suggested he might be doing autographs at fleamarkets? Pretty
much. The "Where are they" page says he is often on the road doing
autograph appearances at memorabilia shows. Pays well enough he has a
penthouse in Los Angeles.
-paghat the ratgirl
berti...@gmail.com
barfi...@gmail.com
> T.v. you dont know what your talking about he could just like gje rest of the 60s gang .go pick on those that cant can you sing?
