that's all
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Artist:Edie Adams and Stan Getz
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Track:Muriel cigars
Someone pretty cool has been writing the Times's obit heads. Like this one:
Edie Adams, Actress and Singer (and Flirt With a Cigar), Dies at 81
Don't you love that parenthesis? Some of us actually remember Adams's Muriel cigar commercials. Here's one with (now, that I didn't remember) Stan Getz:
Funny, though. The woman had a fine career in theater (Daisy Mae in Li'l Abner—she won a Tony; Eileen Sherwood in Wonderful Town), movies (The Apartment; Love With the Proper Stranger), a TV variety show (Duke Ellington was a guest)-- and perhaps her greatest recognition came as a result of "why don't you pick one up and smoke it sometime." You know she had to have a sense of humor. She married comedy legend/genius/Nairobi trio member Ernie Kovacs, after all. (And when Kovacs died, and left IRS debts, the cigar ads no doubt paid some bills.)
The obit ends with this unusually affectionate paragraph:
Among the most memorable performances of her career was a song she sang on the final episode of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" in April 1960. The show was the last in the long partnership of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz; their marriage had crumbled and they were no longer speaking on the set. As part of the convoluted plot of the episode, Ms. Adams, with Vivian Vance at the piano, performed a bell-clear, heartbreaking rendition of the Alan Brandt-Bob Haymes classic "That's All," which reduced the entire crew to tears.
Here it is:
Now, could that happen on a sitcom today?-- an engaging chanteuse, offering a pretty and straightforward rendition of an old standard, for an almost uncut two minutes plus. Isn't it nice?
Comments (6)
What a woman....And what astonishingly good phrasing on that second clip.
No clip of Edie as Daisy Mae?
If you can find one, be my guest.
Sorry I'm just getting around to commenting...At first when Edie Adams passed I thought, oh, I don't really know anything about her except that she was married to Ernie Kovacs, who I always had a weird crush on. But now, I realize, how could I have forgotten? She was Daisy Mae! Sometimes on Fridays or Saturdays when I was a kid my parents and I would listen to musicals, and Li'l Abner was one of the biggies. My mom and I had all the words to "I'm Past my Prime" memorized, and we would sing along to it together and crack up. And "Namely You" would always cause my parents to look sweetly at each other. Anyways, that "That's All" you posted above is amazing.
I'm just getting here myself, deedee - and I'm glad I came. I was saddened by Edie's passing, too. Although her heyday was quite a while ago, I always enjoyed seeing her in vintage TV clips. (I'm a big Kovacs fan.) In fact, I'll call it one of those impossible crushes I occasionally get on dearly departed stars. (Where have you gone, Veronica Lake?) And the video of "That's All" is so perfect and poignant. The ambivalent look on Lucy's face as Edie - so evidently in love with Ernie and still glowing from the song - passes her is telling.
Thanks, you guys. I almost didn't post this, cause she wasn't all that well-known (and because I didn't want to become the mog-obit-lady), but I loved those clips. And I'm glad you did too, and I'm so pleased by your reactions.