Edie embraces Kippie (left) and Belle after custody fight.
custody battle, resumed a career,
life "leveling off" again
piling up, and I had to do something. So one day I opened
the door and walked in.
"It was a man's room. Paneled walls, armor, heavy
furniture. I didn't want it changed, but I couldn't take
that oppressiveness. I had a white piano moved in. It
looked silly there, so I moved in some other frilly things.
Then I could get down to work."
Edie was not alone, however. Her mother, Ada Enke,
closed her home in Tenafly, N. J., and flew to Los Angeles
to help with the children. And the latter, in Edie's words,
"were simply wonderful."
"Betty had always been conservative," Edie explains,
"but Kippie well, Kippie is a lot like Ernie. She had
her own riding horse, and she loved it, but one day she
came to me and said: 'Mother, how much is that horse
costing us a month?' I looked it up and told her. 'Let's
sell it,' she said. 'It's something we can do without. We
can grow up.' "
In the past months, Edie admits she has "pushed" her
career as never before. "I always figured one full-time
career was enough for any family. Besides, the older
girls needed somebody who could take time with them."
Betty and kippie were children of Ernie's first mar
riage; they unquestionably needed extra attention.
In their early years they were pawns in a prolonged and
bitter custody battle between Ernie and his first wife.
The court awarded custody to Kovacs, and he and Edie
set out on the difficult course of "making things up to
them without spoiling them."
The custody fight resumed after Kovacs' death. The
children's natural mother sued to regain them. The
courts decided the girls were old enough to decide them
selves which mother they preferred to live with. They
chose Edie.
Meanwhile, Edie's career spurted forward. She con
tracted to do six television "intimate musical reviews"
for Ernie's former cigar-company sponsor, and she filmed
"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" for Stanley Kramer.
Then came a tentative offer to costar with Bob Hope in
"Call Me Bwana."
It was a big break for a comedienne. But Edie hesi
tated. Was she getting these offers because of her talents
or because people felt sorry for her or, worse, because
they could capitalize on the sensational but painful pub
licity surrounding Kovacs' death?
"I won't sign until I'm sure it's me they want," she
said, and then she put a ban on interviews that might
"exploit" her personal problems.
On the basis of her past performances, Edie seemingly
had little to worry about. A no-nonsense student who
wanted to be a music teacher, she had spent five years
at the famed Juilliard School of Music. Her attempts to
( Continued on page 14)
family Weekly, November II, mi 13
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