A.C. Edwards; Partner in Paint Empire

Arthur C. Edwards, who with the late Frank Dunn took two stores and a tiny factory and built them into the paint and wall-covering network that today is the Dunn-Edwards Corp., died Sunday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe. He was 85 and a company spokesman said he had died of cancer and the aftereffects of a stroke.

Edwards was a successful paint salesman in 1938 when he bought a half interest in Dunn’s small company. From humble beginnings in Los Angeles the two men built the company into a success story that today includes 32 paint stores in California, Arizona and Nevada and a subsidiary operation in New Mexico. Three factories--in Los Angeles, Tempe, Ariz., and Albuquerque, N.M.--supply those stores.

Edwards is survived by his wife, Marge, three sons, a sister, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Friday at noon at the Church of the Recessional, Forest Lawn, Glendale.