News4  Bookman Old Style

Tony winner, Kovacs wife Edie Adams dies

Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times
Edie Adams autographs photos of herself and late husband, comedian Ernie Kovacs, in 2007.

Edie Adams

 
 
Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times
Edie Adams autographs photos of herself and late husband, comedian Ernie Kovacs, in 2007.
From the Associated Press
9:31 AM PDT, October 16, 2008
 
Actress and singer Edie Adams, the blonde beauty who won a Tony Award for bringing Daisy Mae to life on Broadway and played television foil to husband Ernie Kovacs, has died. She was 81.

Publicist Henri Bollinger says Adams died in Los Angeles Wednesday from cancer and pneumonia.

 
 
 
Adams was a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music and hoped to become an opera singer. Instead, she gained fame for her sketches with Kovacs and her pivotal roles in Broadway musicals. She also had a long stage and film career.

Adams also was known as the sexy spokeswoman for Muriel cigars in the 1950s and 1960s. In TV ads, she famously purred: "Why don't you pick one up and smoke it sometime?"

Adams is survived by a son, Joshua Mills.