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Dig A Hole: Edie Adams

October 16th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Edie Adams, wife of Ernie Kovacs, Trina Yale in The Oscar and perhaps the most famous female cigar seller died Wednesday in a Los Angeles hospital from pneumonia and cancer. She was 81.

By the time my memory bank had reached 3% capacity, it must have already contained images of Edie Adams and Ernie Kovacs. Perhaps they were stored while watching a variety show or an episode of What’s My Line? Oddly enough, the first impression Ms. Adams made was not wrought with her trademarked bubbly laughter. In Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, Adams plays Miss Mary Olsen, Jeff Sheldrake’s spurned wildcat of a secretary eager to throw present mistress Miss Kubelik to the dogs. Wilder furnished Miss Olsen with leopard print outfits and cat’s-eye frames and to Ms. Adams’ credit, the role never became oversimplified or stereotypical. Edie Adams was one of the first non-Disney villains to make me cower behind the front seat of my dad’s pink Ford convertible at the Sunset Drive-In.

In early 1962, Ernie Kovacs accidentally smashed his car into a telephone pole on the way home a baby shower for Mrs. Milton Berle’s. By that time I had figured out that he and Ms. Adams were husband and wife. His uninhibited demeanor and non-sequitur gags formed enough of an impression on my seven-year-old mind for me to be saddened by the news of his passing. But what of Edie? After fate intervened and broke up the act, would she be able to go it alone?

She had no other choice. Ernie Kovacs died over $500,000 in debt. Kovacs felt that the American tax system was unfair and refused to pay Uncle Sam the several thousands of dollars they demanded. Berle, Frank Sinatra, Jack Lemmon, Dean Martin and other stars organized a TV special to raise money for her and her daughters. Edie wanted no part of charity. For one solid year she worked non-stop. 1963 saw the release of four Edie Adams pictures: The Jack Lemmon sex comedy Under the Yum Yum Tree, the insufferable It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (where she and Sid Caesar are stuck in the basement of the hardware store for what seems an eternity), the unwanted pregnancy drama Love With a Proper Stranger and as Bob Hope’s love interest in Call Me Bwana. She was so desperate to restore her late husband’s good name, she agreed to appear in what, in my expert opinion, is Bob’s worst vehicle. I defy you to watch it and tell me I’m wrong. In fact, I defy you to get all the way through it.

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Dig A Hole: Dody Goodman

June 23rd, 2008 by Scott Marks

Dody Goodman as Martha Shumway in MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN

Dody Goodman, the pixyish Southern belle comedienne/character actress know for her appearances on Jack Paar’s couch as well as the mother on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Blanche Hodell in both Grease movies died Sunday at the age of 93.

Born Dolores Goodman in Columbus, Ohio on October 28, 1914 where her father ran a cigar store. For years Goodman successfully shaved 14 years off her age by listing her birth year as 1929. This minor discrepancy was upheld for decades before the past eventually caught up with her and shattered the myth.

She arrived in New York to study dance in the late 1930s. She studied at the School of American Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, and later graduated to Broadway musicals.

According to the Associated Press, Goodman gained a measure of success for her dancing solos in such ’40s Broadway musicals as High Button Shoes and Wonderful Town. In 1955, she stopped the show in the off Broadway production Shoestring Revue with the novelty song Someone’s Been Sending Me Flowers. She returned to Broadway in 1974 to appear in Lorelei with Carol Channing.

Jack Paar & Dody Goodman

Goodman first appeared on television in the recurring role of a waitress on The Phil Silvers Show. Adopting a scatterbrain persona, Goodman eventually caught the attention of talk show pioneer Jack Paar. Her ditzy aura and seemingly spontaneous malaprops delighted Paar and gaine national attention for Goodman who was soon invited to become a semi-regular on The Tonight Show.

“I was just thrown into the talking,” Goodman said in a 1994 interview with The Associated Press. “I had no idea how to do that. In fact, they just called me up and asked me if I wanted to be on ‘The Jack Paar Show.’ I didn’t know who Jack Paar was. They said, ‘We just want you to sit and talk.”‘

Jack Paar did not take well to being upstaged and Dody’s impeccable ad-libs eventually resulted in a permanent falling out. In 1958 she was dropped from The Tonight Show’s roster, but invitations from other talk shows soon began pouring in.

She began making regular appearances on Virginia Graham’s Girl Talk, Merv, and The Mike Douglas Show. In 1970, with Paar safely out of the picture, she once again began appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

She hit her stride plating Louise Lasser’s mother on the dotty serial Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Her high-pitched voice could be heard announcing the show’s title at the beginning of each episode.

Following Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Goodman’s career gained momentum. She picked up where Marion Lorne left off playing addled neighbor ladies or eccentric housekeepers on TV’s Diff’rent Strokes and Punky Brewster, as well as movie roles in both Grease films and cartoon voiceovers on a slew of Chipmunk Adventures.

Goodman, who never married, is survived by seven nieces and nephews, 11 great nieces and nephews and 15 great-great nieces and nephews.

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