The TV Zone

Here's some sad news and yet another reminder that time, and life, passes very quickly. Edie Adams has died.

Edie Adams: A member of one of the great shows in TV history ("Ernie Kovacs Show"). She won a Tony for her Daisy Mae on Broadway - in "L'il Abner" - though millions may best remember her as the beauty who sold Muriel cigars.

I don't remember the Kovacs show - which profoundly influenced David Letterman - but I do, vaguely, distantly, remember those Muriel ads. To me - a mere babe - Edie Adams was impossibly beautiful, a heartbreaker with whom I fell head-over-heels in love. And only in first grade was I.

Fortunately, never took up cigars, but when I hear that name - Edie Adams - a distant and happy memory is invoked.

Another one of the greats is gone.

Now, two quick clips. The first, for you young 'uns, is a clip of the old "What's My Line?" which was a hugely popular show in the '50s, in which celebrities would come on, and the blind-folded celebrity panel would try to guess who they were. There's a funny punchline here, and I'm afraid I'll have to telegraph it a little bit: Adams did a famous impression of Marilyn Monroe on "Kovacs;" (Ernie, her husband, died in a car accident in the early '60s; he's sitting next to her.)

Next, the Muriel ad, with a Stan Getz track no less.