We tried to get some biographical material on Ernie Kovacs, but this shy and unpretentious mnan would only talk of another, more in need of publicity than he -- P. Dovetonsils, Poet Laureate.
Of Percy Llewelyn Dovetonsils, Ernie tells us that he (Dovetonsils) began his career at an early age with difficulties encountered from dull cuticle scissors and an overly thick umbilical cord. In this early effort, Mr. Dovetonsils employed the pulsation of the cuticle scissors (much as Vachel Lindsey less adequately used the beat of the tom-tom) in his Schwartza work, "The Congo." Some examples, poems of Mr. Dovetonsil's famous blues period, include "Ode to a Six by Sixteen Tire," "Ode to a Fig Blight on Adam's Leaf," "Ode to Sal Mineo's Garage," "Love in Highstown, New Jersey," and "Ode to a D-C8 Eating Its Young."
Our very favorite Dovetonsils poem is "Ode to an Emotional Italian Knight who Once Wore the Suit of Medieval Armor (Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art), While Engaged to One of Botticelli's Models."
Even though you may have grown to love it.
There must have been times when you were aware
Of the inconvenience of it.
From Hollywood, Help!'s Help!mate, Gloria, reported on photographing Kovacs for the cover. It seems that after a hectic week of trying to pin him down for a photo date, Gloria finally cornered Ernie on the 20th Century lot where he is currently filming an Alaskan saga, titled "Go North" ("North to Alaska").
Kovacs, in custom-built blazer with solid-gold dubloon buttons and in his custom-built limousine with pile carpeting and two telephone lines (in case one is busy) whisked away to the photographers where he posed for a frantic series of shots -- back into the limousine. When last seen he was tooling down the highway to do his ABC TV show, his head peeping from out the deep-pile carpeting, and a tangle of telephone lines.
In the envelope with the finished photographs, we found this note from Gloria: "Lissen, man, like next time let's do a funny photo of someone who's easier to find. Castro or Albert Schweitzer maybe."
