"One thing about my mom; she was keenly aware of her sex appeal. She knew men would be happy to spend time with her. But she was smarter than the average bear."
Josh Mills
If you were a male who grew up in America in the 1960s, Edie Adams may have been your introduction to the appeal of the opposite sex.
If she wasn't your introduction, she was darn close to it.There were lots of beautiful women on TV and in the movies in the 1960s, and a young man's fancy could easily be swayed from one beautiful face and sexy body to the next.
Edie Adams wasn't Marilyn Monroe, although she did resemble her and she used that to further her career.
Adams appeared in both TV and the movies. But she may have been most memorable as the "Muriel cigar girl" — the long-time pitch lady on Muriel cigars' TV commercials, dancing in slinky dresses and urging viewers to "pick one up and smoke it sometime" in her best Mae West impersonation.
When I heard on Wednesday that Adams had died at the age of 81, I thought about her commercials — but I also thought of her performance in the 1964 political drama, "The Best Man," in which she played the wife of presidential candidate Cliff Robertson, whose character was locked in a battle for his party's nomination with Henry Fonda.
(I remember being about 9 or 10 when I saw that movie for the first time — and I couldn't understand how Robertson's character could be accused of being a "degenerate" as a young man in the service — and yet be married to someone as alluring as Adams.)
Other than the facts that Adams died recently and this is a presidential election year, I guess there's nothing else that makes the film relevant.
Except for the fact that I've always liked the movie. And I always liked Adams.
Adams died of pneumonia and cancer, according to her son, Josh Mills, her only survivor.
By the way, you can see a couple of Adams' movies (both from 1963) on Turner Classic Movies this Friday:
- "Love With the Proper Stranger" at 7 a.m. (Central).
- "Under the Yum-Yum Tree" at 1 p.m. (Central).
