Ernie Kovacs & Bette Lee Wilcox

Divorced
Ernie Kovacs and Bette Lee Wilcox  
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Ernie Kovacs and Bette Lee Wilcox were married for 6 years. They dated for 1 year after getting together in 1944 and married on 13th Aug 1945. 6 years later they divorced in 1952.

They had 2 children, Elizabeth and Kip Raleigh (74).

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Relationship Statistics

StatusDurationLength
Dating1944 - 13th Aug 1945 1 year, 7 months
Married13th Aug 1945 - 1952 6 years, 4 months
Total 1944 - 1952 8 years


(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.

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Relationship Timeline

1952 - Divorce

August, 1951 - Breakup

1949 - Child

13th August, 1945 - Marriage

1944 - Hookup

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Children

NameGenderBornAge
ElizabethFemale
Kip RaleighFemale194975 years old

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