ERNIE KOVACS Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

Biography » actors and actresses » ernie kovacs

ERNIE KOVACS

Name: Ernie Kovacs                                                               
Birth name: Ernest Edward Kovacs                                                 
Born: 23 January 1919 Trenton, New Jersey                                         
Died: 13 January 1962 Los Angeles, California                                     
                                                                                 
                                                                                 
Ernie Kovacs (January 23, 1919—January 13, 1962) was an American comedian whose 
uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comic style came to       
influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his tragic, early   
death in an automobile accident. Such later, iconoclastic shows as Rowan and     
Martin's Laugh-In, Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Uncle Floyd Show, and       
Saturday Night Live and TV hosts like David Letterman are seen as bearing         
Kovacs's influence.                                                               
                                                                                 
Born to parents of Hungarian descent, Kovacs was influenced deeply by his         
Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and thus went to     
acting school after his 1937 graduation. His first paid entertainment work was   
as a disc jockey on Trenton's WTTM radio, which led eventually to his first       
television job (1949-1950), a show called Three to Get Ready, at NBC's           
Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ.