Ernie Kovacs and Bette Lee Wilcox - Dating, Gossip, News, Photos list. Help us build our profile of Ernie Kovacs and Bette Lee Wilcox!
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(13 August 1945 - 1952) (divorced) (2 children)
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie") 1949. The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television film, Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which gained an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs' first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters shortly after his death. She began August 2, 1962 by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs' estate and charging her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs' widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams broke down, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs' reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.