Yes, Edie has just died, but she was 81. Let's not dwell on death. Let's reminisce. Let's talk about smoking and sex, commercials and comedy.
I remember seeing those cigar commercials when I was a kid, and I think it was through those commercials that every Baby Boomer learned what a phallic symbol was. My parents loved the sexy pop culture women of the Edie Adams type -- a subject I've discussed many times on this blog -- but invariably, the sight of Edie Adams would set my parents to talking about Ernie Kovacs. Oh, how they loved Ernie Kovacs, whom they'd watched from his earliest days when he was on local TV in Philadelphia and how terrible it was when he died.
Here's Edie Adams in an interview, talking about Kovacs. Love at first sight:
I remember him standing there with a hat and a mustache and a cigar. He looked like something out of a B-movie, evil personified or something.... I never saw anything that looked like that... I thought: I don't know what that is, but I want one of those.Ernie did cigar ads too:
RIP, Edie and Ernie.
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25 comments:
HOLY SHIT!!!
Stan Getz was WHITE?!?!?!
Ernie Kovacs is the guy who Steve Allen stole from who is the guy David Letterman stole from.
His gorilla skit was a classic.
Edie was old school sexy llke Angie Dickerson and Julie London and Mamie Van Doren.
She knew how to treat a man.
When I was a kid I thought Edie Adams' name was Muriel.
I remember Ernie Kovacs as a very funny person. I remember Edie Adams as HOT, long before "hot" was used to describe people!
I saw some of those commercials with Edie Adams back when I was a little kid.
I was so young I didn’t know there was even such a thing as sex and I certainly didn’t know anything about what it meant to be sexy.
And now, as I sit here at this computer decades later, I can still vividly recall my young thoughts as I pondered what it was about her I found so fascinating.
P.S. Even as a little kid I always thought smoking was stinky and disgusting. I once said so to my mother (who smoked cigarettes) and she told me that I once ate the contents of an ashtray when I was a toddler. That didn’t help, any. Disgusting!
Here's an example the "gorilla skit." Adams is one of the gorillas.
Those were the days before the cigar hobby became big stuff. So Muriel and Dutch Masters and White Owl were the cigars that the candy stores and bodega's had behind the counter. Now even little hole in the wall places have a good selection with Cohibas and Arturo Fuente and Punch and Davidoffs and other great brands.
One of the very few things that are better now than in the sixties.
The Nairobi Trio
I always thought Edie Adams played 'Honey West' on the obscure TV show of the same name. Hmm... it was Anne Francis.
Yow. Every scene is cheesecake. Based on works by G.G. Fickling!
And everybody smoked back then. My high school teachers smoked in class...pipes, cigars, cigarettes....people smoked in hospitals. Everywhere except while pumping gas.
No tobacco, no America.
Yes, Bissage, you didn't know what sex was, but admit it -- Edie made you tingle.
BTW, my father didn't smoke, but he kept an old Muriel cigar box on his workbench in the garage.
It was full of screws.
I never got the joke.
But I sure spent a lot time obsessing over that illustration on the lid.
I could never figure out why a picture of a nun kept giving me a boner.
Right you are ricpic . . . right you are!
Now that was sexy.
My cousin gave me a couple of beautiful Romeo y Julieta's yesterday and I smoked one last night. We took a bunch of people out to dinner and afterwards some came back to the house to sit in the yard and have some wine. The cigar was so smooth and delicious like smoking a cloud.
As a kid, I always confused Ernie Kovacs and Sandy Koufax. Too young to know the former, and too American League (it was well before cable TV) to know the latter.
When I recall from childhood memory my composite impression of sirens like Edie Adams, I think of the following Seinfeld exchange, which pretty much sums it up.
Elaine: Married women don't "get together". They have affairs.
George Costanza: Oh my God, an affair. That's so adult. It's like with stockings and martinis, and William Holden. On the other hand it probably wouldn't cost me any money.
Honey West had a Cobra? Wow. Probably just a 289 but still totally awesome.
Speaking of smoke, watch this Corvette Z1 at the Nurburgring.
Her ads never struck me as sexy.
Barbara Feldon had a tiger ad before Get Smart, that's similarly supposed to be sexy and is not; proving her appeal was actually in how she treated Max.
Last week we watched the old movie “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” starring William Holden and Jennifer Jones. Jennifer Jones plays a “Eurasian” doctor who has an affair with William Holden’s married war correspondent. But the funny thing was the theme song which a number one hit for weeks and weeks. The played the song in every freaking scene. He turns on the radio, the song is on. They go in a restaurant the song is playing. Now I remember the song but only the first two lines, so I started grabbing the wife and hugging her and bending her back like Pepe Lepew and singing the two lines to her in a real “romantic” voice. At the most inappropriate times. When we are in line at the deli. Walking down Court St. She is getting pissed off.'
But I can’t help it. I am just a romantic.
Imagine if anyone tried that "Nairobi Trio" skit today? Especially during this campaign!
As far as I can tell, none of the present day great apes are indigenous to Kenya. So what's the connection to these six foot simians playing musical instrucments?
So, clearly, this entire thread is a thinly veiled racist attack by the desperate McCain campaign because the Obama clan hails from Nairobi, Kenya.
How cynical of you, Ann.
"Extra LENGTH, Extra Taste, Extra Pleasure"
Some women prefer extra girth over extra length. I don't know.
89% of old time sex appeal was big false eyelashes and eye shadow. It really is an amazing trick. Along with high heals.
Jeez louise look at Ann's recent postings. Nose picking, bird doo doo, incest, dead people and sex, dead squirrels........
Jeez louise look at Ann's recent postings. Nose picking, bird doo doo, incest, dead people and sex, dead squirrels...
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Clinton pretty much ruined the sexy cigar image for me.
Bissage:
It was full of screws.
I never got the joke.
Priceless.
the days...i was about 8 it was christmas and my mom sliped me $5.00 so i could buy presents for them and my siblings and I got my dad a little package of White Owls...just marched up and the guy asked me if they were for me and I think I stammered and blushed and said no..for Christmas for my dad and he sold them to me. I was proud at the time.
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