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Why
Edd Byrnes walked out on
'Sunset Strip"
By JIM COOPER
AROUND HOLLYWOOD the private jest was that Edd Byrnes was negotiating for a marriage dowry. The quip, like most worthwhile humor, was not too far from the truth. For a long time it had been "Kookie's" habit to take a pauper's oath every time he was asked why he clung to bachelorhood. Confronted with persistent reports that he was on the verge of slipping a gold band on the bridal finger of his vivacious blonde sweetheart, Asa Maynor, he sighed:
"How could I? I couldn't get married right now if I wanted to. I don't even have the price of His and Her combs."
On the surface, it would seem that combs have become an inflationary commodity, thanks to Edd's constant smoothing of his pompadour on "77 Sunset Strip". His take home pay — ostensibly made public to bring forth public weeping over his impoverished state — was a mere $284 a week. But even at those starvation wages, it would appear that a man who really shopped could buy a lot of combs.
Edd Byrnes argued otherwise. For a young man who had to keep up all the costly appearances of stardom, he had come to consider $284 a piddling realization on his fame.
He was considered a good soldier at Warners. He complied almost uncomplainingly with the never ending requests of the publicity department. He was prompt, serious and hardworking on the set. He never made derisive noises about the studio in public.
So when "Kookie" shoved his comb in his hip pocket, and instructed the William Morris Agency to grapple with his bosses for improved pay and working conditions, not to mention other emoluments, to many people it seemed out of character. It caught everyone by surprise but the people who knew him.
Edd privately had been airing his grievances for months. Beneath the polite veneer he took such pains to spread over the stalemate, there was festering discontent.
Problems that might seem laughable to someone not
continued on page 59
I
PERTURBED over take home pay of ?284 a week, hardly enough to disport himself as a star, Edd Byrnes detoured "77 Sunset Strip".
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