Three Tristans!

Ramon Vinay, the tenor cast with Birgit Nilsson in "Tristan," said he was too ill to do the entire opera, so Rudolph Bing had Vinay sing Act I, Karl Liebel (likewise under the weather) sing Act II and Albert da Costa (also ill) sing Act III. Hedda Hopper interviews Ernie Kovacs. Jeane Hoffman profiles Stanford’s Dick Norman.

Dec. 29, 1959: A fascinating bit of insight from Ernie Kovacs: “The part of the public I lose completely is the 8-to-5 clerk who bowls every Thursday night and has Sunday dinner with his mother one week and his wife's mother the next.” I wonder what Kovacs would say about TV audiences today.

Comments

[Chris Morales]

There was no one doing anything remotely like Ernie Kovacs programs on TV. Today, Kovacs is considered a visionary, but as he correctly assessed, the viewers in the "vast wasteland" could not appreciate his revolutionary, free-form exploration of the medium of television.

It's likely that he knew that his career direction lay in the movies, and he worked regularly in supporting roles from the late 50's until his death in 1962.

Even so, his lifestyle exceeded his income and his widow Edie Adams, worked hard for years to pay off the debt he left behind.