Edie Adams

About Edie Adams

Edie Adams (born Elizabeth Edith Enke on April 16, 1927) is an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress.

Born in Kingston, Pennsylvania, Adams is a graduate of both the Juilliard School of Music and the Columbia School of Drama, and in 1950 was "Miss U.S. Television".

Adams began her career in television working with comedian Ernie Kovacs and talk show pioneer Jack Paar. Kovacs and Adams married on September 12, 1954, and remained together until his death in a car accident on January 13, 1962. They had a daughter, Mia Susan, who was also killed in a car accident (in 1982), on the same stretch of highway, at the age of 22. Kovacs was a noted cigar smoker, and Edie did TV commercials for Muriel Cigars. She remained the pitch-lady for Muriel well after Kovacs' death, intoning in a Mae West style and sexy outfit, "Why don't you pick one up and smoke it sometime?" Another commercial showed the alluring Adams singing, "Hey, big spender, spend a little dime with me." A Muriel cigar then cost a dime. Kovacs' network, ABC, gave Edie a chance with her own show, Here's Edie, but it was a one-season casualty. Edie made sporadic appearances through the decades on television, including on Designing Women.