Screenland Plus TV-Land (Jul 1959 - May 1960)

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Why Edd Byrnes Shuns Love continued from page 72 wouldn't stand for it. The real truth is, the kid has no time. Between filming his TV show, making recordings, posing for publicity stills, devoting every single lunch hour to interviews and going out on whirlwind personal appearance tours, Byrnes is probably the busiest boy in Hollywood. If he did have a steady girl, he'd be breaking dates with her every other night — and you know how long a girl would go for that." It is largely this problem that keeps Edd alone and unattached. He remembers that when he first came to Hollywood, he wangled a tiny, almost invisible role alongside Tony Perkins in "Fear Strikes Out." Though he is normally unafraid ("I can bluff my way into any situation"), there are relationships where sheer bluff simply isn't enough. Were he to become enamored of any girl, Edd would have to take on obligations and responsibilities that he's just not ready to face. A loner as far back as he can remember, Edd is aware that he might feel restless in double harness, or even if he were engaged. He knows, too, that his life is so frenetic today that he could give only a small portion of himself to any girl, and in love, half a loaf is not better than none. Not the way Edd sees it, anyway. THOUGH he tells the story with a wry smile, Edd is not particularly proud of an encounter that took place at a party not long ago. Coming into the room, he spotted a girl whose face looked enticingly familiar. Edd smiled, but the girl looked coldly through him. He couldn't, at first, understand her disdain. Then he finally remembered. "She was a nice girl I'd once taken out," said Edd, ruefully. "Just after that, I had to go on location and I promised to phone her. When I got back to the studio, there were a million things to do, and I'm ashamed to say that I forgot my promise. It was the first time that I'd been so busy working that I'd forgotten to call a really sweet girl whose company I had enjoyed." Edd does not say so, but it is clear that such occurrences in his romantic life tend to make him overly-cautious. It's as though he were saying, "My life right now is not my own; how can I possibly share it with anyone?" Some men, more callous or more selfish than Edd. might comfort themselves with, "I want this girl and I'm going to marry her, and she'll just have to see me when she can." But such a philosophy is not for Edd. No man is an island, Edd knows, and he remembers with a good deal of pain that as a child he saw almost nothing of his father, who was an Army man and came home only on infrequent leaves. For Edd, there must be true family life, and until he is ready for it, he feels it isn't fair to ask any girl to content herself with merely a fraction of himself. And so, for all his surface flippancy, Edd forces himself to believe that the time is not yet ripe for love. "Sure, I'd like to have the right girl bossing me around," he says — but that's as far he goes. Like a schoolroom text he's learned, he'll recite. "When the day comes that I'm fortunate enough to achieve security, I'd certainly want to share it with someone, and I intend to. What's in life if you're just tied up within yourself and with your own selfish interests?" But in another mood, he'll shift back to his contention that there are other things in his plans more important than love — and then you know that Edd is not really ready to settle for just one girl. The real truth is, doubts still assail him. and in his all-too-rare moments of self -revelation he confesses, "I find it hard to be really close to many people." On the other hand, almost no one in Hollywood— at least among the younger stars — is less introverted than Edd. He is not a man to prowl among the mysteries of his own subconscious. A head-shrinker would starve waiting for Byrnes to lie down on the analytic couch. Though he may wear childhood scars, he hides them very well. "I didn't have a particularly happy boyhood," he said, "but it was no worse than any other kid's. I wanted to go to Hollywood and become an actor, and I did. I've always been fascinated by the unknown — I guess I"m the explorer type — and I've had the chance to explore new experiences to my heart's content." If Edd is hoping, in time, to comb Kookie out of his hair, he has valid MARRIAGE, to Edd, means a true family life and he feels he's not ready for that. reasons. As one observer put it, fc] made six pictures before he started rat that comb through his ginger-brown ! on TV. But if the teenagers noticed h they certainly didn't flip for Edd u he started making with the jive ta. Kookie and Edd Byrnes are two air i totally different people, as those ell to Edd have long known. If Edd so times wonders if those 6.000 eager letters a week are for Edd Byrnes I merely for Kookie, it's understanda! And like any normal man, Edd ha; notion that he'd liked to be loved mo: for himself. THERE was the time, only recer when a great many of Edd"s fans w into a tizzy over a certain phone num mentioned in his new album. "Like I L You." Supposedly, the phone number i a concocted one through which Edd co he reached, but by some incredible en it turned out to be the business office an exterminating company in a Los J geles suburb. The first day the alb came out more than 2.000 phone c; from Kookie's admirers lit up the terminating company's switchboard liki crazy Christmas tree — some of the i, calling from as far away as New Jen and Maine. The frenzied calls for Koo literally put the company out of busin< and Edd's studio spent days straighten out the mess. So, when Edd now meets a new girl, hard for him not to wonder. "Who's attraction — Kookie or Edd Byrnes?" So chicks, he knows, have flung their m cloying smiles his way in the hope furthering their own careers. Such t calculated interest leaves him cynical a even fearful. If Edd is looking for girl, his search is for the girl who v care for him. not Kookie, because that i with the comb is a different fellow al gether. And until he's sure that he is \o\ entirety for himself, with all his faults a frailties and his own Edd Byrnes chat he's going to keep that armor right o1 his heart. He'll say again, as he has s; so often, "I'm simply drowning in a : of beautiful faces. There are so ma lovely girls around that a fellow j can't choose." But in that new house of his (still skimpily furnished with only a couj of chairs and a bed), one girl could ma Edd happy. Not even Edd knows 1 name — yet. He doesn't know what s looks like, and at this moment, her eyes be they grey, blue or brown — are of oi academic interest. What does matter the way she'll make Edd understand tl it's he who counts with her — the r< Edd, the boy who made it the hard way not that brash fellow cavorting on t 21-inch screen. That's when fear will strike out, : Edd and his girl. That's when Edd ^ stop running away from love. Until th< he'll probably keep a lock on his hea and only the very brave and understai ing will own the key to open it. 74