Today’s Way Out Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Talented, way-out Ernie Kovacs – whose range of comedy characters included lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils – once said, “I like to be onstage because nobody can bother me there. Lawyers, process servers, insurance salesman – anyone.” While he would make several movies, it was on TV that the burly Kovacs best demonstrated his rich and inventive comedy, most of which he wrote himself.
He and actress Edie Adams married in 1954 and moved to California in 1959 when Columbia Pictures signed Kovacs to a four-year contract at $100,000 a picture. In 1960 he appeared on screen in five features, ranging from Our Man in Havana to Strangers When We Meet. In what proved to be his last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (1961), he was cast as a menacing villain.
Edie Adams and Ernie Kovacs
In early 1961, Kovacs was acting in a TV pilot (A Pony for Chris with Buster Keaton) and was discussing a feature-film production deal with Alec Guinness. Then came January 12, 1962, the day that ended everything for Kovacs.
The Kovacs were invited to director Billy Wilder’s apartment on Wilshire Boulevard to celebrate the christening of Milton and Ruth Berle’s new son, Michael. Edie drove to the party alone in her Corvair station wagon, since Ernie had been busy working on the TV pilot all day and was to meet her there. He drove to Wilder’s place in his white Rolls Royce. At 1:20 A.M., Ernie and Edie left the get-together. He offered French movie star Yves Montand a ride, but Montand decided to go with the Berles. Slightly drunk, Ernie drove off in the station wagon (which Edie hated to drive), asking his wife to drive the Rolls home. As he roared through the wet night, his vehicle smashed into the concrete triangle at the intersection of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevard. The impact spun the car around and wrapped it around a pole. Kovacs died instantly of a basal skull fracture. He was found dead with a Cuban cigar a few inches from his hand. Had he not been momentarily distracted while trying to light the stogie, he would have been 43 on January 23, 1962.
Unaware of the tragedy, Edie had driven home. When she heard the bad news, she refused to believe her husband was gone until Jack Lemmon went to the morgue and confirmed that he was indeed dead. Edie asked Lemmon to put several Havana cigars in Ernie’s pocket before the burial.
The funeral was held on January 18, 1962, at the Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church, and attended by a host of celebrities. Pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Billy Wilder, and Dean Martin. The comedian was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California, where his marker reads: “Ernie Kovacs 1919-1962. Nothing in Moderation. We all loved him.” The hard-working Edie was saddled with $600,000 in gambling and tax debts that took her years to pay off.
Kovacs dead at the scene
The battered Corvair
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Anonymous/AP/Shutterstock (6628352a)
Dotted line in this view of Santa Monica Boulevard course taken by a skidding station wagon driven by comedian Ernie Kovacs and the power point into which he crashed, Los Angeles, Calif. Kovacs died in the wreckage. He was enroute home when the vehicle went out of control on wet pavement
Ernie Kovacs Crash Site 1962, Los Angeles, USA
Scene of the Crash – it looks nothing like this now.
Culled from: The Hollywood Book of Death
I think Kovacs died of same skull fracture that Dale Earnhardt died of. Great loss, ahead of his time. Wonder if he had not died would he have played dentist role in Mad, Mad World. Edie played wife to Sid Caesar dentist.
I don’t think so. Dale went face first into the steering wheel and died from a basilar skull fracture. Kovacs got whopped upside the head.
It’s sad, for sure. Seems like “slightly drunk” may be understating it. But I wasn’t there.