Cindy Adams

Cindy Adams
Cindy Adams with Jazzy and Juicy at the premiere of Spiderman 3 in 2007
Born	April 24, 1930 (1930-04-24) (age 79) New York City, New York, United States
Residence	New York, New York, United States
Nationality	United States
Other names	Cindy Heller
Occupation	Gossip columnist
Years active	1965 — present
Employer	New York Post
Home town	New York City
Known for	Gossip columnist/biography writer
Spouse(s)	Joey Adams

Cindy Adams (born April 24, 1930) is an American gossip columnist and the widow of comedian Joey Adams.

Early life

Born in New York City, an only child, when she was one year old her parents divorced. Her mother, Jessica Sugar (December 5, 1906 - April 15, 2001)^[1], worked as an executive secretary for the New York City Water Department and was a single parent until her remarriage to insurance agent Harry Heller. Cindy Heller grew up on Washington Heights and Jamaica Estates. She left Andrew Jackson High School at the age of 15 without graduating (she was academically qualified but the principal reportedly refused to graduate her unless she learned to sew).^{[citation needed]}

Marriage to Joey Adams

She began to work as a photographer's model in Manhattan, meeting her future husband, Joey Adams, a year later when they appeared on the same radio show. ^[2] Married on Valentine's Day 1952, they had no children, and Joey Adams died in 1991 following a long illness.^[3]

Writing career

Cindy Adams currently writes a gossip column for the New York Post and contributes to WNBC's Sunday Today in New York. She had previously contributed twice a week on WNBC's Live at Five until the newscast took on a new format on March 12, 2007.^{[citation needed]}

Her husband, Joey Adams, was a humorist who wrote a newspaper column for the Long Island Press in New York, and later the New York Post. Cindy Adams also wrote for local papers, eventually writing for the Post (beginning in 1979) at the same time as her husband. In 1965 she co-wrote an English language autobiography of Indonesia's President Sukarno, about whom she wrote another book two years later. In 1975 she published a biography of Jolie Gabor, mother of Eva Gabor and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Among those she interviewed in 1970 was the Shah of Iran, while she later became friendly with Imelda Marcos.^[4][5]

Adams became a syndicated columnist in 1981; she was an original contributor to the tabloid TV show A Current Affair and has appeared often on Good Morning America. In 1990, Adams served as a panelist on To Tell the Truth.

Activism

After her husband died in 1999, Adams found a new love-dogs. Given the dog by her friends, Jazzy, her Yorkshire terrier, not only trailed her in public, but actually became a celebrity within himself. Adams and Jazzy would often dine together at New York's finest, including Le Cirque.^[6] Adams would dress her dog in expensive designer clothes and jewelry. She wrote a memoir about Jazzy, entitled "The Gift of Jazzy" and launched the “Jazzy” line of merchandise.

Adams put Jazzy in a kennel in upstate New York when she left the city. By the time she returned Jazzy had died.^[7] Adams claimed thet she had embraced the theory that Jazzy was a “reincarnation of her husband”.^[8] She had an autopsy performed, which showed E. coli bacteria in the dog's system. In the New York Times, Adams was quoted as saying "Now this is a dog that I hand-fed. I would lie on my stomach in the kitchen and hand-feed him kosher chicken. We would go to Le Cirque and eat off of Limoges porcelain. Where would he get E. coli?"^[9] She became a vocal advocate for strengthening regulations of boarding kennels. In 2004, she garnered the support of Barbara Walters, Ivana Trump, the lawyer Barry Slotnick, the author Tama Janowitz, as well as then-City Council speaker Gifford Miller, to pass the Boarding Kennel and Regulation Act, also known as "Jazzy's Law". According to Adams: "To prevent others from suffering my pain this local Boarding Kennel and Regulation Act will: license kennels, monitor them regularly, fine those in violation, require records and rules, demand boarded pets prove vaccination and immunization against contagious doggy diseases."^[10]

Despite the strict NYC health code which only permits service animals (i.e. seeing eye dogs) in restaurants, Adams continues to bring her dogs – Juicy and the new Jazzy – to restaurants such as Le Cirque.^[11] The New York City Health Department, whose inspectors enforce the restaurant regulations, is the same department that enforces "Jazzy's Law".

Adams lives and works from a nine-room penthouse with a 1,000-square-foot (93 m²) verandah at 475 Park Avenue, which Joey and Cindy Adams had purchased from the estate of billionaire heiress Doris Duke in 1997.^[12] Due to the apartment's connection with Duke, Adams hosted the wrap party for the 2008 Duke biopic, Bernard and Doris.^[13]

Works

• Soekarno (Sukarno) and Cindy Heller Adams. Sukarno: An Autobiography. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.
• Adams, Cindy Heller. My friend the dictator. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1967.
• Adams, Cindy Heller. Lee Strasberg, the Imperfect Genius of the Actors Studio. Doubleday, 1980. ISBN 9780385124966
• Adams, Cindy Heller; and Susan Crimp. Iron Rose: The Story of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and Her Dynasty. Dove Mass Markets, 1997. ISBN 9780787110765
• Adams, Cindy. The Gift of Jazzy. St. Martin's Press, 2003. ISBN 9780312273071
• Adams, Cindy. Living a Dog's Life: Jazzy, Juicy, and Me. Macmillan, 2007. ISBN 0312364075

References

External links

• Cindy Adams at the Internet Movie Database