Edd Byrnes, Italian - He Lost Fifteen Pounds Some of It From Fright [archived newspaper article]

 

Fresno Bee

By Vernon Scott

December 14, 1967

HOLLYWOOD – (UPI)  - “Head ‘em off at the pass, Giuseppe.” The Italians are rustling the traditional Hollywood staple, the Western.

     Hore operas are bigger in Italy than gran opera.

     Edd Byrnes, television’s Kookie in the defunct “77 Sunset Strip” series, recently returned from the land of Lasagna where he starred in three cowboy shoot-em-ups, and he knows.

     “I LOVE IT over there,” he said, “They give me parts that would go to Paul Newman in this country. And the money is terrific – as long as you have it deposited in a bank.”

     Edd made a fourth, non-Western picture while he was there and plans to return to Europe for another contemporary picture after the first of the year.

     “It’s a good way to keep your weight down,” he concluded. “I lost 15 pounds while I was over there, probably some if it from fright.”

     “The Italians have a flare for Westerns,” says he. “But they’re wilder the old wild West.”

     “Sometimes I was lucky to escape with my life.”    

     In one scene, Edd was to touch off a fuse with a cigar. He followed instructions and the fuse blew up in his face, setting his hair afire ang singing his eyebrows.

     LUCKILY the scene was on the bank of a lake, into which Byrnes hastily jumped.

     “They don’t have special effects experts there like they do in Hollywood,” Edd explained.

     “When the script calls for them to blow up a cabin they really blow it up with dynamite. They load their six-shooters- all copies of American guns-with fully loaded blanks. In Hollywood we only use quarter loads.

     “WHEN YOU fire a gun people can get hurt easily at close range. So you’ve got to keep ducking or get powder-burned.”

     In another instance, our hero was almost killed by a pack of runaway horses.

     II THOUGHT it was just a rehearsal,” Byrnes recalled. “But I found myself in the middle of a field with nothing to hide behind when a dozen horses came thundering at me. I had to run for my life.”

     Byrnes has nothing bu praise for his Italian directors who were only members of the crew who spoke English.

     “It’s a rough life for the horses, though,” he sighed. “They don’t train them. When horses are supposed to fall, they just attach a wire to their legs and down they go. You can lose a lot of horses that way.”

     Byrnes like Clint (Rawhide) Eastwood, found that his television series pave the way for Italian adoration. He was given the full star treatment.