Edie Adams
Edie Adams (born Edith Elizabeth Enke;[2] April 16, 1927 – October 15, 2008)[3] was an American comedian, actress, singer and businesswoman. She earned a Tony Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Edie Adams
October 15, 2008 (aged 81)
Edythe Adams
Edith Adams
Edith Candoli
- Comedian
- actress
- singer
- businesswoman
1951–2004
2
Adams was well known for her impersonations of sexy stars on stage and television, especially Marilyn Monroe.[4][5][6] She was the frequent television partner of Ernie Kovacs, her husband. Adams founded two beauty businesses: Edie Adams Cosmetics and Edie Adams Cut 'n' Curl.
Personal life[edit]
After Kovacs's death, Adams was married two more times. In 1964, she married photographer Martin Mills. In 1972, she married trumpeter Pete Candoli, with whom she appeared in a touring production of the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes. In addition to raising stepdaughters Bette and Kippie from her marriage to Kovacs, Adams gave birth to daughter Mia Susan Kovacs (killed in an automobile accident in 1982) and son Joshua Mills.[2][59][60]
Although Adams identified as a Democrat,[1] she campaigned for Republican Dwight Eisenhower's re-election during the 1956 presidential election,.[61] as well as for other liberal Republicans such as Jacob Javits and later Nelson Rockefeller.[1]
Adams was an early advocate of civil rights, frequently lending her support to the movement at celebrity events [62] and on her own television show during the early sixties. She insisted that her duet with Sammy Davis Jr. on her variety show Here's Edie be staged so that they were seated next to each other – as equals. Prior to that, entertainers of different races and sexes were unable to perform next to one another, so that one had to be in front of or behind the other.
Kovacs' legacy[edit]
Adams archived her husband's television work, which she described during a 1999 videotaped interview with the Archive of American Television.[64] 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 said 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.[65]
Upon discovering that her husband's work was disappearing through being discarded and re-use of the tapes, Adams initially used the proceeds of his insurance policy and her own earnings to purchase the rights to as much footage as possible.[51][66]
Since 2008, Edie Adams' son Joshua Mills has run Ediad Productions, Inc., which controls the rights to all the Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams TV shows and recordings.[67][68][69] Ben Model is the archivist for the Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams television collections.[70]
In 2015, the Library of Congress acquired a collection of more than 1,200 kinescopes, videotapes and home movies featuring Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams, from Joshua Mills, Edie Adams' son and the president of Ediad Productions.[71][72][73]