Actress, singer, and Muriel Cigar girl of countless TV commercials Edie Adams has died at 81. On Broadway, the cuddlesome Adams won a Tony for creating the role of Daisy Mae in the musical Li'l Abner. Though never a big movie star, in the 1960s she had roles in such films as The Apartment, Lover Come Back, Under the Yun Tum Tree, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Love with the Proper Stranger, The Best Man, The Oscar, and The Honey Pot. However, she will always have a special place in the hearts of many because of her marriage to Ernie Kovacs, which lasted from 1954 until his death in 1966. By all reports the marriage was a happy one, which would seem to indicate that Adams had a sense of humor, a tolerance for chaos and cigar smoke, and just a general inclination to put up with a lot, qualities that men will always find not just endearing but awe-inspiring in a beautiful woman.
In later years, her film and TV credits included the first Cheech and Chong movie, Up in Smoke, where she and Strother Martin were somehow cast as Tommy Chong's parents; The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood; and a cameo as Mae West in a 1984 TV movie that starred Jeff Goldblum and Melody Anderson as Kovacs and herself. Her last screen appearance was in the PBS miniseries Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City in 1993.
