`I was born old, but Ernie Kovacs taught me how to be a child,” said Edie Adams, who was married to the zany comedian from 1954 until his death in 1962, and is the person behind much of the resurgence of interest in his work. Kovacs, the cigar-smoking, rule-breaking pioneer and creator of inventively funny television shows, is definitely still making viewers laugh. Adams sold 105 of Kovacs` shows to cable`s Comedy Central channel. And now ”The Best of Ernie Kovacs” is being released in home video by White Star Video, a division of Kultur International Films.
Each 60-minute video in the five-cassette series ($19.95 each) features skits from Kovacs` early TV shows. The routines include Percy Dovetonsils reading the poem ”Leslie the Mean Animal Trainer”; the woman-in-a-tub blackouts to the tune of ”Mona Lisa”; a bow-and-arrow blackout; the
”Kitchen Symphony”; the Nairobi Trio; ”Beethoven`s Fifth Poker Game”;
the ”Whom Dunnit” game show; and a parody of `50s Westerns.
The segments are introduced by Jack Lemmon, who calls Kovacs the ”wild, zaniest man” he has ever known-someone who ”had an unpredictable, illogical view of the world.”
It`s a view his former wife endorses to the fullest.
”I come from a very conservative Presbyterian background,” said Adams, who is currently playing in a road production of ”Hello Dolly” in New Hope, Pa.
”I was always the responsible type, while Ernie was dedicated to having fun. Money didn`t mean anything to him; it was only important if it wasn`t there. If it was, he spread it around and spent it.
”He was good-looking and fun,” she continued, ”and would never let me take anything seriously. If I did, he`d shoot me down and have me laughing in no time.”
Unlike those who agree with baseball pitcher Satchel Paige`s advice-”
Never look back”-the singer enjoys talking about her marriage to Kovacs.
(Since his death, she twice remarried.)
”I remember when I first saw this guy (Kovacs) with a foreign name, a mustache, smoking a cigar, and soft hat on his head. I thought, `Wow! Look at him; I don`t know what this is, but I want one of those.` ”
That was, according to Adams, in 1951, and in 1954, they married. ”My parents were beside themselves,” recalled the graduate of New York`s Juilliard School of Music. ”Here I was marrying a divorced man. . . . But after the wedding, when they got to know him, in the eyes of my mother he was a saint.
”I never had to worry about anything,” she said. ”We had a lot of fun. And, frankly, I liked the easy way he lived. Somehow, we got by.”
Kovacs started on radio in Trenton, N.J., and later moved to the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia, where he starred in a variety of shows, including the cooking show ”Ernie in Kovacsland” (1951). It`s where he developed his unique, offbeat, zany style.
”He knew what television wasn`t-not radio, not vaudeville-but he didn`t know what it was,” said Adams. ”So he began experimenting.”
Adams recalled when they moved to New York from Philadelphia, and had just taken over an East Side apartment.
”We started fixing it up when one day we visited Imogene Coca in her lovely duplex on Central Park West. Ernie looked out the window, saw another unoccupied duplex across the way, and rented it immediately. We moved what little furniture we had in this huge apartment, with more rooms than I could count. But it was a lovely view.”
A critic once described Kovacs as ”a tightrope walker performing without a net.” But his safety net soon became the networks, all three of which Kovacs worked for during his career.
Adams explained in her book ”Sing a Pretty Song” that during those years they moved from network to network, from time slot to time slot.
His programs included ”The Ernie Kovacs Show” (`52-`53), the game show
”Time Will Tell” (`54), ”The Ernie Kovacs Show” (`56), the talk show
”Tonight” (`56-`57), the quiz program ”Take a Good Look” (`59-`61) and
”Silents Please,” a silent films anthology hosted by Kovacs (`61).
Kovacs and Adams also did commercials: He for Dutch Masters; she for Muriel Cigars.
”I did them (cigars) for 20 years,” she said, ”and I think they`re the only thing I`m not allergic to. I love the smell of them. Ernie smoked 20 a day.
”His motto was `Nothing in moderation.` Those are the words I put on his tombstone.”
But there`s an ironic tragedy in her life that Adams still can`t face up to: the death of one of three daughters she and Kovacs had-Mia Susan, who died like her father in an automobile accident, at age 22.
”It is still hard for me to deal with it,” the singer/actress admitted. ”She died just like Ernie did. . . . He was 42. He took has hands off the wheel to light a cigar. What`s so strange about it is they both suffered the same bodily injuries.”
Does she think his comedy might be somewhat dated today?
”No more so than Charlie Chaplin`s,” she replied.
”Colleges and universities teach a course on Kovacs shows. That`s going to be my next video. Something that can be an educational tool for schools.”
