Ed Byrnes

Edd Byrnes
Byrnes in 1973 in a guest appearance on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour
Born	Edward Byrne Breitenberger (1933-07-30) July 30, 1933 (age 84) New York City, New York, United States
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1956–1999
Spouse(s)	Asa Maynor (m. 1962–71) (divorced) one child
Children	Logan Byrnes

Edd Byrnes (born July 30, 1933) is 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).

He was born Edward Byrne Breitenberger. He had two siblings, Vincent and 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.

His enduring and most famous role was as Gerald Lloyd "Kookie" Kookson III, on the ABC/Warner Brothers detective series 77 Sunset Strip. He played a continually hair-combing contract killer in the pilot, Girl on the Run, but he was so popular (a national teen sensation) that the producers brought him back the following week as a regular cast member in the role of a chrome-plated hotrod-driving, hipster-talking ("Kookie-talk") parking valet and sometime protégé private investigator. Efrem 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.

Kookie's recurring character—a different, exciting look to which teens of the day related—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 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.