Edie Adams (born Edith Elizabeth Enke;[2] April 16, 1927 – October 15, 2008)[3] was an American comedian, actress, singer and businesswoman.

[16] One of her vocal teachers, Dusolina Giannini gave her some half-encouraging, half-discouraging advice: to abandon her hopes of being an opera singer and "go straight into musical comedy.

[citation needed] According to her memoir, she did a three-week stint in Montreal and Toronto singing with a trio led by Artie Arturo.

When he saw his daughter on the show, Adams's father was upset to find her role involved trying to avoid pies in the face.

[29] In one of his last interviews, Kovacs looked back on the early days, saying, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only—the producer had all the say.

[31] After a courtship that included mariachi bands and an unexpected diamond engagement ring, Adams and Kovacs eloped; they were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City.

[40] Adams was to play Daisy Mae in the film version of Li'l Abner but was unable due to the late arrival of her daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs.

[4] After Kovacs's death, his network, ABC, gave Adams a chance with her own show, Here's Edie, which received five Emmy nominations but lasted one season, in 1963.

[41] She remained the pitch-lady for Muriel well after Kovacs's death, intoning in a Mae West style and sexy outfit, "Why don't you pick one up and smoke it sometime?

[42] In subsequent years, Adams made sporadic television appearances, including on Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, McMillan & Wife, Murder, She Wrote and Designing Women.

[43] Shortly after her husband's death, Adams won a "nasty custody battle" with Kovacs's ex-wife over Edie's stepdaughters.

His ex-wife had previously kidnapped the girls during a visit years before; because Kovacs was their legal guardian, he and Edie had worked tirelessly to locate his daughters and bring them home.

[44][45] Another court battle began for Adams in the same year, this time with her mother-in-law, who refused to believe there were more debts than assets in her son's estate.

[43][50][51] The couple's celebrity friends planned a TV special benefit for Edie and her family, but she declined, saying, "I can take care of my own children."

[55] Because of her 20 years of commercials for Muriel Cigars (retiring in 1976)[56][57] and her successful business ventures, Adams went from being mired in debt after Kovacs's fatal accident in 1962 to being a millionaire in 1989.

[2] She was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, alongside her first husband Ernie and between her daughter, Mia, and her stepdaughter, Kippie.

[64] After her death an article in The New York Times said that her work "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde".

[66] Upon discovering that her husband's work was disappearing through being discarded and re-use of the tapes, Adams initially used the proceeds of his insurance policy and her own earnings to purchase the rights to as much footage as possible.