Edie Adams, 1927 - 2008.

Edie Adams, an actress, comedian and singer who both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde, especially in a long-running series of TV commercials for Muriel cigars, in which she poutily encouraged men to "pick one up and smoke it sometime," died Wednesday in the West Hills section of Los Angeles. She was 81...

In the 1960s she took her talents to the movies, appearing largely in supporting roles in battle-of-the-sexes films including The Apartment (1960), with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine; Lover Come Back (1961), with Doris Day and Rock Hudson; and Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963), with Mr Lemmon and Carol Lynley. She was part of the enormous ensemble - including Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Spencer Tracy, Phil Silvers, Mickey Rooney and Ethel Merman - in Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and she played the wife of a ruthless presidential candidate (Cliff Robertson) in the screen adaptation of Gore Vidal's political drama The Best Man.

Bruce Weber, New York Times (via Tom Sutpen).

In Playbill, Robert Simonson recalls "a multi-talented actress who put her shapely figure, comic instincts, and clear, Juilliard-trained singing voice to good use by creating the roles of Eileen Sherwood in Wonderful Town and Daisy Mae in Li'l Abner."

See also: Wikipedia.

Posted by dwhudson at October 16, 2008 9:07 AM