Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter

Ernie Kovacs
Kovacs on the set of his television show, 1956
Birth name	Ernest Edward Kovacs
Born	(1919-01-23)January 23, 1919 Trenton, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	January 13, 1962(1962-01-13) (aged 42) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Medium	Newspaper, radio, television, magazine, cinema
Nationality	American
Years active	1949–1962
Genres	Character comedy, surreal comedy, improvisational comedy, prop comedy, spoof, sketch
Spouse	Bette Lee Wilcox (m. 1945; div. 1952) (2 children) Edie Adams (m. 1954–62) (his death) (1 child)
Children	Betty (b. 1947) Kippie (1949-2001) Mia Kovacs (1959-1982) (car accident)
Parent(s)	Andrew J. Kovacs (1890-1967) Mary Kovacs (1901-1981)

Ernest Edward "Ernie" Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.

Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Many individuals and shows, such as Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom,Chevy Chase,Conan O’Brien,Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Dave Garroway,Uncle Floyd, and many others have credited Ernie, as having been influenced by him. Chevy Chase acknowledged Kovacs's influence, and thanked him during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.

Some of Kovacs's unusual behaviors include having pet marmosets and wrestling a jaguar on his live Philadelphia television show.

When working at WABC (AM) as a morning-drive radio announcer and doing a mid-morning television series for NBC, Kovacs claimed to dislike eating breakfast alone while his wife, Edie Adams, was sleeping after her Broadway performances. His solution was to hire a taxi driver to come into their apartment with his own key and make breakfast for them both, then take Ernie to the WABC studios.