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Edie Adams

 
Artist: Edie Adams
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Pop Artists

Performed Songs By:

Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers

Formal Connection With:

Irwin Chusid
  • Born: April 16, 1927, Kingston, PA
  • Active: '50s
  • Genres: Vocal Music
  • Instrument: Vocals, Producer, Main Performer
  • Representative Albums: "Charming Miss Edie Adams," "There's So Much More," "Music to Listen to Records By (Edie Adams Sings?)"

Biography

A glamorous blonde singer, actress and comedienne, Edie Adams has performed on-stage, on television, in nightclubs and in films.

Born Elizabeth Edith Enke April 16, 1927 in Kingston, Pennsylvania, she began her acting and singing career in college. She was a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music and the Columbia School of Drama. Her show business career began when she entered a television talent show. With her television debut came the prestigious titles of Miss New York Television and Miss U.S. Television.

During the 1950s Edie Adams saw her popularity soar when she starred with Ernie Kovacs on his television show, The Ernie Kovacs Show. In 1955, she married the popular star but was widowed in 1962. She married two more times, to Marty Mills in 1964 and Pete Condoli in 1972. Both of these marriages ended in divorce. Aside from her television career, Edie Adams found time to perform on Broadway and on-stage. She starred in Wonderful Town in 1953 and won a Tony Award in 1956 for her portrayal of Daisy Mae in Li'l Abner. She also starred in the first musical comedy written for television, Cinderella, with musical sensation Julie Andrews.

Edie Adams released an album in 1959 titled The Charming Miss Edie Adams on the RKO record label. The songs she sang, which included "Sailor Man" and "There May Be a Love" were previously released hits. "If You Don't Love Me" and "He Don't Wanna Be Kissed," also on the album, were written by Ernie Kovacs, her then-husband, Domenico Modugno, the writer and singer of Volare, and Jack Segal, a lyricist. The album was re-released in 1997 on the Varese record label.

The '60s brought Edie Adams a plethora of new film roles, mostly secondary roles. Even in these roles, though, her charm and glamorous looks were noticed. She appeared in The Apartment, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Cheech & Chong's Up In Smoke in 1978. Edie Adams portrayed Mae West in Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter; the television biography aired in 1984. Her film credits in the '80s also include The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood and Boxoffice. Her television career continued in the '90s with roles in Tales of the City and Jack Spanner, Private Eye.

Her personal life took a sad turn in 1982 when her daughter, whose father was Ernie Kovacs, was killed in a car accident. Sing a Pretty Tune, Edie Adams' autobiography published in 1990, recounts not only her personal life, but her stage, film, nightclub and television career. ~ Kim Summers, All Music Guide
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Actor: Edie Adams
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Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Apr 16, 1929 in Kingston, Pennsylvania
  • Died: Oct 15, 2008
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '60s-'80s
  • Major Genres: Comedy, Drama
  • Career Highlights: The Apartment, Lover Come Back, The Best Man
  • First Major Screen Credit: The Apartment (1960)

Biography

Born Elizabeth Edith Enke, on April 16, 1927, in Kingston, PA, Edie Adams was a graduate of both the Juilliard School of Music and the Columbia School of Drama. She began her career in television, utilizing her singing and comedic talent as a regular on the popular Ernie Kovacs Show in the early '50s. Adams and Kovacs were married in 1955 and remained together until his death in 1962. Before appearing in films, she starred on Broadway in Wonderful Town (1953) and Li'l Abner (1956). Her first major film role was playing Miss Olsen in Billy Wilder's 1960 comedy The Apartment. The film work that followed cast Adams in mostly secondary roles that highlighted her talent for comedy and displayed her spirited presence. Other films include: Lover Come Back (1961), Call Me Bwana (1963), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963), Love With the Proper Stranger (1963), The Best Man (1964), Made in Paris, The Oscar (1966), The Honey Pot (1967), Up in Smoke (1978), and Raquet (1979). Adams also appeared in the documentary Kovacs in 1971. She spent her last few decades making periodic guest appearances on such television programs as Designing Women, Fantasy Island and The Love Boat, and died of pneumonia and cancer in 2008. ~ All Movie Guide
Wikipedia: Edie Adams
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Edie Adams
Born Edith Elizabeth Enke
April 16, 1927(1927-04-16)
Kingston, Pennsylvania,
United States
Died October 15, 2008 (aged 81)
Los Angeles, California,
United States
Other name(s) Edith Adams
Occupation Actress, comedienne, singer
Years active 1952–2004
Spouse(s) Ernie Kovacs (1954-1962) (his death) 1 child
Marty Mills (1964-1971) (divorced) 1 child
Pete Candoli (1972-1988) (divorced)

Edie Adams (April 16, 1927 – October 15, 2008) was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde."[1]

Contents

Biography

Adams was born as Edith Elizabeth Enke [2] in Kingston, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey.[3]

She earned a vocal degree from the Juilliard School of Music, and then graduated from Columbia School of Drama. In 1950, she won the "Miss U.S. Television" beauty contest, which led to an appearance with Milton Berle on his television show.[1] Her earliest television work billed her as Edith Adams.

Adams began working regularly on television with comedian Ernie Kovacs and talk show pioneer Jack Paar. Kovacs was a noted cigar smoker, and Adams did a long-running series of TV commercials for Muriel Cigars.[4] She remained the pitch-lady for Muriel well after Kovacs' death, intoning in a Mae West style and sexy outfit, "Why don't you pick one up and smoke it sometime?"[1] Another commercial for Muriel cigars, which cost ten cents, showed Adams singing, "Hey, big spender, spend a little dime with me" (based on the song, "Hey Big Spender" from the musical "Sweet Charity.")

Kovacs' network, ABC, gave Adams a chance with her own show, Here's Edie, which received five Emmy nominations but nevertheless was on for only one season. In 1960, she and husband Ernie portrayed themselves as the guest stars in the final Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz "Lucy/Ricky Ricardo" coupling hour-long TV special on the Columbia Broadcasting System network. In subsequent years, Adams made sporadic television appearances, including on Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote, and Designing Women.[1]

Adams starred on Broadway in Wonderful Town (1953) opposite Rosalind Russell (winning the Theatre World Award), and as Daisy Mae in Li'l Abner (1956), winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She played the Fairy Godmother in Rodgers and Hammerstein's original 1957 Cinderella broadcast.

Adams played supporting roles in several films in the 1960s, including the bitter secretary of two-timing Fred MacMurray in the Oscar-winning film The Apartment (1960) and the wife of presidential candidate Cliff Robertson in 1964's The Best Man. In 2003, as one of the surviving headliners from the all-star comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, she joined actors Marvin Kaplan and Sid Caesar at a 40th anniversary celebration of the movie. She was also a favorite nightclub headliner.

Adams married Ernie Kovacs on September 12, 1954, in what was Kovacs' second marriage; they remained together until his death in a car accident on January 13, 1962, after which she won a "nasty custody battle" over her stepdaughters, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh "Kippie" Kovacs (1949-2001), married Bill Lancaster, son of Burt Lancaster).[3] She also worked for years to pay off Kovacs' massive back-taxes debt to the IRS.

Adams had two later marriages, briefly to photographer Martin Mills and then to trumpeter Pete Candoli. She gave birth to two children: a daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, who was born in 1959 and killed in an automobile accident in 1982, and a son, Joshua Mills.[3]

Edie Adams died in Los Angeles, California at age 81. According to her son, the causes were cancer and pneumonia.[1][3]

She is also known for her work in archiving her husband's television work. She later testified on the status of the archive of the short lived DuMont Television Network, where both she and husband Kovacs worked during the early 1950s. Adams claimed that so little value was given to the film archive that the entire collection was loaded into three trucks and dumped into Upper New York Bay.[5]

Filmography

Television

  • Ernie in Kovacsland (1951) (canceled after 2 months)
  • The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–1956)
  • The Guy Lombardo Show (1956)
  • Cinderella (1957)
  • The Gisele MacKenzie Show (1958)
  • I Love Lucy (1960)
  • Take a Good Look (panelist from 1960–1961)
  • Here's Edie (1963–1964)
  • Evil Roy Slade (1972)
  • Cop on the Beat (1975)
  • Superdome (1978)
  • Fast Friends (1979)
  • The Seekers (1979)
  • Make Me an Offer (1980)
  • Portrait of an Escort (1980)
  • A Cry for Love (1980)
  • The Haunting of Harrington House (1981)
  • As the World Turns (cast member in 1982)
  • Shooting Stars (1983)
  • Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984)
  • Adventures Beyond Belief (1987)
  • Jake Spanner, Private Eye (1989)
  • Tales of the City (1993) (miniseries)

Films

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Weber, Bruce (2008-10-16). "Edie Adams, Actress and Singer (and Flirt With a Cigar), Dies at 81". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/movies/16adams.html. Retrieved 2008-10-16. 
  2. ^ Born Edith Elizabeth Enke as per 1930 US census
  3. ^ a b c d "Singer, Muriel cigar beauty Edie Adams dies at 81". Associated Press (CNN). http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/16/obit.adams.ap/index.html. Retrieved 2008-10-16. 
  4. ^ http://www.altadisusa.com/company.asp
  5. ^ Adams, Edie (March 1996). "Television/Video Preservation Study: Los Angeles Public Hearing". National Film Preservation Board. Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/film/hrng96la.html. Retrieved 2007-09-24. 

External links

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Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical

Juanita Hall (1950) · Isabel Bigley (1951) · ) · Helen Gallagher (1952) · Sheila Bond (1953) · Gwen Verdon (1954) · Carol Haney (1955) · Lotte Lenya (1956) · Edie Adams (1957) · Barbara Cook (1958) · Pat Stanley (1959) · Patricia Neway (1960) · Tammy Grimes (1961) · Phyllis Newman (1962) · Anna Quayle (1963) · Tessie O'Shea (1964) · Maria Karnilova (1965) · Beatrice Arthur (1966) · Peg Murray (1967) · Lillian Hayman (1968) · Marian Mercer (1969) · Melba Moore (1970) · Patsy Kelly (1971) · Linda Hopkins (1972) · Patricia Elliott (1973) · Janie Sell (1974) · Dee Dee Bridgewater (1975)

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