Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over, and Our Man in Havana. He garnered critical acclaim for roles such as the perennially inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the off-center base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs' last film, Sail a Crooked Ship, was released shortly before his death. In North to Alaska (1961), John Wayne's character's hair flies off with the first punch of a fight with Kovacs as a con artist.
Kovacs had been chosen to appear as Melville Crump in Stanley Kramer's star-packed comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with Adams portraying his wife, Monica Crump. After his death, the role went to comedian Sid Caesar. Kovacs had also been slated to appear with Jack Lemmon and Kim Novak in The Notorious Landlady but was posthumously replaced by Fred Astaire.
Read more about this topic: Ernie Kovacs
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