Ernie Kovacs and his co-star wife, singer Edie Adams, whose new comedy variety show moved into the "Caesar's Hour" time spot (KSD-TV, 7 p.m. Monday) this past week, turn a pretty penny with their combined talents. Last year they wound up with a six-figure income through their various chores in television, radio and assorted other entertainment endeavors, including a supper-club stint for Edie at New York's swank Persian Room. This year, on the wave of ther fast-rising popularity, they stand to do even better.
Interviewed over a hefty beakfast, off-beat humorist Ernie and singer-comedienne Edie told how their separate careers crossed and in 1954 resulted in both marriage and a show business partnership.
Edie says her husband's encouragement is responsible for the blossoming of her comic talent, which will get full play on their new evening show with Edie doing such bits as her hilarious impression of Eva Gabor reading Shakespeare in a heavy Hungarian accent and Marilyn Monroe singing Schubert lieder. The new show also will feature top guest stars and continue with the Kovacs's "Kultured Kharacters" such as Poet Percy Dovetonsils; Howard, the world's strongest ant; Wolfgang von Sauerbrauten, the German disc jockey, and the bon vivant, Pierre Ragout.
Of Hungaraian descent, Ernie was born in Trenton, N.J., "some 35 years ago" and was something of a standout in high school operettas. As a result of his singing of the role of the pirate king in "Pirates of Penzance," he received seven scholarships to acting and singing institutions.
"The things they did to get me out of high school," Ernie clowns.
A few years later Ernie was singing leads in stock companies on Long Island and then formed his own company, writing, directing, playing leads and designing scenery. Eventually he turned to radio and did announcing, served as a disc jockey, and later became a newscaster on various stations in Trenton, New York and Philadelphia. He also wrote a humorous daily newspaper column in Trenton for five years, turned out gags for nightclub comics, did voices for a movie cartoon outfit, wrote and did character voices and narration for commercial TV cartoons, and created several quiz shows.
In Philadelphia, Ernie had his own TV show where he established such grand old institutions as EEFMS (Early Eyeball Fraternal Marching Society) and first introduced the Kovacs gallery of Kultured Kharacters who have since been standard features on his morning show (KSD-TV, 9:30 a.m. weekdays).
Since Ernie moved his comic wares to New York,he has been busy doing radio and TV, sometimes working two or three programs at once. Besides his television activities, he continues to do a three-hour daily radio program on ABC.
It was while he was doing TV in Philadelphia that Edie Adams was brought to his attention. The director of Ernie's program saw Edie on an Arthur Godfrey "Talent Scouts" program and suggested that Ernie give her a job.
"I didn't win the Talent Scouts program," says Edie, "but I did eventually win a husband."
Born Edith Enke in Kingston, PA., Edie, as she prefers to be called, attended Juilliard School of Music in New York and the Columbia School of Dramatic Arts. She was dead set on an operatic career. When she began to doubt that she would ever make the grade, she turned to pop singing and got her first break singing with a combo in a Toronto, Canada, nightclub.
After a stint with Ernie on Philadelphia TV, Edie got her Broadway baptism -- and rave reviews -- in "Wonderful Town." George Abbott, the producer who cast her as "Eileen" in the smash Broadway musical, described her as "a beautiful girl with a wonderful voice. But her assets are her sincerity and versatility as a performer."
Married now for almost two years, Edie and Ernie live, not quietly but happily, in a "17 rooms, 7 baths and 4 terraces" apartment overlooking Central Park. With them are Ernie's two daughters by a previous marriage, Betty, 9, and Kippy, 7, who show every sign of growing up to be chips off the old Kovacs' comic block.
