The Great Ernie Kovacs

Ernie Kovacs is perhaps now a "footnote" in the TV and movie business, but his short-lived life was legendary at one time.

The thing was, Kovacs died pretty young. At 42, in a totally unnecessary car crash in Beverly Hills on a rainy night. He was driving alone, no seat belt, and evidently reaching for a trademark cigar when he crashed into a phone pole. Hollywood was shocked. Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Billy Wilder were among Kovacs' pallbearers, even though he'd made movies with none of them.

TV is where Kovacs made his name, working his way up from radio to local Philadelphia morning TV to New York TV to Los Angeles network TV with a series of highly inventive, almost arty, but often quite hilarious television productions.

As would eventually happen to other TV comedians, from Dick Van Dyke to Chevy Chase to Will Farrell, The Movies Came Calling, and by around 1957, Ernie Kovacs had a movie career going.

Kovacs landed a contract with Columbia Pictures under Harry Cohn, so most of his movies are Columbia ones: "Operation Mad Ball," "Bell, Book, and Candle," "It Happened To Jane,""Our Man In Havana." Most of the time, he played military men (Kovacs actually took out an ad in Variety saying "No more #$@#!!! Captains for Me!"),including a CUBAN Captain in the comedy thriller "Our Man In Havana" (1960.)

Kovacs wasn't considered leading man material for the movies. He was more of a character guy -- "cool comic relief " -- what with his tall burly figure, bushy eyebrows, and above all, his big moustache. He looked good smoking cigars, and had a gorgeous blonde wife off-screen (Edie Adams), who gave his on-screen supporting men a touch of sexy authority (just knowing that he could have such a beautiful wife off-screen made Kovacs more charming on screen.)

Upon hitting movies, Kovacs became fast-friends with the cuter, more white-bread Jack Lemmon,and the two Columbia contract men were paired in several movies together. It has been suggested that had Kovacs not died so young, he and Lemmon might have played "The Odd Couple," and supplanted the Matthau-Lemmon team. (Interestingly, you can see Kovacs WITH Walter Matthau, playing good-guy support against Matthau's villain in the Kirk Douglas-Kim Novak adultery romance, "Strangers When We Meet" of 1960.)

All of which brings me to Ernie Kovacs in "Bell, Book, and Candle."

Kovacs didn't stay with us long, and his movies are few. But I think he's best in movies in "Bell, Book, and Candle."

The character of Sidney Redlitch in "BBC" is rather different for Kovacs. He's not quite the martinet that his "captains" usually are.

Sidney is a best-selling author-expert on witches whom Kim Novak "summons" up from sunny South America to snowy NYC as a "gift" to publisher James Stewart. Sidney shows up at Stewart's office looking very sleepy, very confused, and above all, very dishevelled -- his hair and suit and tie all messy and undone. Sidney's also a heavy drinker, always a bit tipsy, but never obnoxious. And Kovacs marvellously underplays Sidney as a rather shy and mumbling elf of a man , utilizing Kovac's "secret weapon" -- his surprisingly soft and lispy voice -- to make Sidney rather endearing. (When Stewart says to Kovacs, "Let's stay in touch," Kovacs' reply is a whispery joke: "I'll touch you...for an advance. That's a little joke. Ha, ha.")

Though witch Novak has "sent" for Kovacs, his knowledge of witches endangers Novak, warlock brother Lemmon,and their coven -- so Kovacs is "dealt with" as the movie goes on. Still,as part of this non-lethal "dealing with," Lemmon is assigned to keep Kovacs busy, and thus do we here get the great teaming of Lemmon and Kovacs as pals (they are opponents in their other Columbia movies; Kovacs is the military villain in "Operation Mad Ball" and the BALD millionaire villain in "It Happened to Jane".)

Ernie Kovacs' greatness is mainly remembered in his ground-breaking creative work for TV. His brief run of movie roles are rather marginal. Even in "Bell, Book, and Candle," Kovacs doesn't get that many scenes, and he is usually around the edges. (Though a shared shot in the back of a cab of Kovacs, Lemmon, and Stewart is like an all-star ride with likeable charismatic eccentrics.)

Still, I think "Bell, Book, and Candle" offers us the BEST memory of Ernie Kovacs we'll ever see: charming, mumbly, suave yet a mess. A guy you just have to like.

He was gone too soon.