Betty Kovacs, the eldest daughter of comedian Ernie Kovacs, who, along with her sister Kibby and stepmother, actress and singer Edie Adams, was at the center of a nasty custody battle that kept Hollywood in the dark, died in 1962. She was 79.
Kovacs, a former dancer and director, died June 21 of pancreatic cancer at her home in Sun City, Calif., said his wife and partner of 45 years, Eileen Jay. Hollywood Reporter.
Ernie Kovacs and his first wife, Beth Wilcox, were married in August 1945. Elizabeth Lee Kovacs was born on May 16, 1947, and her sister Kip Raleigh Kovacs was born on January 4, 1949.
Shortly after their parents divorced in 1952, a court awarded Ernie full custody of the children — it was not common for a man to have custody at the time — when it was determined that his ex-wife was mentally unstable. Meanwhile, Ernie and Adams met on his television show in Philadelphia in 1951, and they married in Mexico City in September 1954.
During a weekend visit in 1953, Betty and Kippie were kidnapped by their mother, and it took Ernie, with the help of private investigators, about two years before he finally found them living in a cabin in Cassia, Florida, in June 1955.
“The girls didn’t know how to eat with a knife and fork, and apparently they never brushed their teeth the whole time they were gone,” Adams wrote in her 1990 memoir. Sing a beautiful song.
The incident was depicted in the 1984 ABC television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between laughswhich starred Jeff Goldblum as Ernie, Melody Anderson as Eddie, and Soleil Moon Frye as Betty.
Seven months after Ernie, then 42, died on January 13, 1962, when he crashed his Chevrolet Corvair into a utility pole in West Los Angeles, his first wife sued to gain custody of Betty and Kip, claiming that Adams was “unfit” to care for them.
Betty, 15, and Kip, 13, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, which they were allowed to do after a four-day court battle. “This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile,” Adams said. “I’m so happy I can hardly express myself,” Betty added.
“Elizabeth had to navigate through that kind of horror,” Jay said. “She managed it very well. She was very strong, very beautiful, kind and understanding. She was an artist at heart.”
(Ernie and Eddie had a daughter, Mia, born in June 1959.)
Kovacs graduated from Rexford High School in Beverly Hills and performed in a revival of the play No, no, Nanette He studied dance in Los Angeles at the famous Roland Dupri Dance Academy, where Jay was a teacher.
She worked in Summer Stock opposite Linda Lavigne and as a director found Betsy Lynn George to star in the 1991 music video for Billy Idol. Cradle of love Which was directed by David Fincher. She also wrote editorials about the defunct ca newspaper.
Survivors include her half-brother, Josh Mills, an author, director and host of the show A rare heir Podcast.
Her sister Mia was killed in May 1982 at the age of 22 in a car accident on Mulholland Drive. Kibby, who was married to screenwriter Bill Lancaster, son of actor Burt Lancaster, died after a long illness in July 2001 at the age of 52.
Tony Award winner Adams, who after Ernie’s death married photographer Martin Mills and trumpeter Pete Candoli, died in October 2008 at the age of 81.
