Ernie Kovacs
Personal Profile
Ernie Kovacs
Birth Name:
Ernest Edward KovacsDate of Birth:
January 23, 1919Zodiac Sign:
AquariusPlace of Birth:
Trenton, New Jersey, USAPlace of Death:
Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USADate of Death:
January 13, 1962Cause of Death:
Road AccidentHeight:
6' 2"Sex:
MaleNationality:
American
Family
Ernie Kovacs
Spouse:
Edie Adams (12 September 1954 - 13 January 1962) , Bette Lee Wilcox (13 August 1945 - 1952)Daughter:
Mia Susan Kovacs,
Career
Ernie Kovacs
Trivia
Ernie Kovacs
- In November 2008 it was announced on The Ernie Kovacs Blog that a box set of new material was to made available sometime in 2009. [7] On April 6, 2009, The Ernie Kovacs Website reported that this project has been indefinitely put on hold.
submitted by - Sanjeev Dhiman
- In 1987, a quarter century after his death, Kovacs's talent was recognized formally: he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.
submitted by - Chotu Dhiman
- In the early 1990s, cable channel The Comedy Channel (which later merged with a competing channel Ha! to become today's Comedy Central) broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. This package included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. As of 2008, however, there are no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels currently scheduling any of Kovacs' television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show
submitted by - Amit Kher
- The film was inspired by a new interest in the comedian thanks to telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work (mostly his videotaped ABC specials) by PBS (produced by WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977.
submitted by - Nihaal Jain
- In 1984, a television movie, Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (starring Jeff Goldblum as the comedian) helped return Kovacs to the public eye, though it focused more on his personal life—especially his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children—than his professional life. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West, one of the impressions she performed on the Las Vegas stage with Kovacs.
submitted by - Amit Rank
Quotes
Ernie Kovacs
- We do these shows for the love of it. The money means nothing. The money is nothing, consequently it means nothing. - Unknown
submitted by - Chotu Dhiman
- Television is often called a medium because it's so rarely well done. - Unknown
submitted by - Vaibhav Dhiman
- There is currently a formula for success in the entertainment medium, that is--beat it to death if it succeeds. - Unknown
submitted by - Sanjeev Dhiman
- Seeing a murder on television can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some. - Unknown
submitted by - Soha Ali
Biography
Ernie Kovacs
Last Updated: Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Born January 23, 1919 - A certified comic genius, Ernie Kovacs' great accomplishments lay in his sublimely creative, way-ahead-of-its-time television work; he was seldom shown to best advantage in films. Born in New Jersey to Hungarian immigrants, Kovacs was an unremarkable student, though he excelled in high school theatricals. A serious bout with pleurisy ended his training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After working with a ragtag theatrical troupe, Kovacs attained his first radio work as an announcer for Trenton's WTTM.
As the station's director of special events, the mustachioed, cigar-smoking Kovacs gained a fan following by staging such zany events as lying on a railroad track as a train approached, informing the listeners at home how it felt to be so close to death! He inaugurated his television career at Philadelphia's WPTZ in 1950, where he stretched the limits of the primitive medium with wild sketches, nonsequitur sight gags and trick photography. He carried this innovative spirit into his first network program, 1952's Kovacs Unlimited.
Though none of his subsequent TV projects ever achieved the high ratings that they deserved, Kovacs was the object of an intense cult worship, comprised mostly of people who were sick to death of boob-tube banality and who thrived on Kovacs' willingness to experiment. In 1954, Kovacs married singer Edie Adams, who frequently starred in his TV endeavors; she also assisted him in his feverish efforts to reclaim his two children from a previous marriage who'd been kidnapped by wife number one. While generally master of his own domain on television, Kovacs was at the mercy of Hollywood typecasting when he began his film career with Operation Mad Ball (1957). He portrayed so many obnoxious Army officers that at one point he took out a trade paper ad, imploring "No More Captains--Please."
His own favorite film was the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in professional widow Cyd Charisse. After completing his last film, Sail a Crooked Ship (1961), Kovacs concentrated his efforts on his ABC-TV monthly specials, wherein he transformed the running gag into an art form, brought inanimate objects to life, "visualized" the musical compositions of Beethoven, Stravinsky and Mahler, and hawked Dutch Masters cigars between the acts. The audacious brilliance of Ernie Kovacs came to an abrupt, tragic end when he was killed in an auto accident at the age of 42.
Filmography
Ernie Kovacs