Saturday 13th January 1962

Ernie Kovacs, a comedian who hosted his own television shows during the 1950’s and is said to have influenced such TV hosts as Johnny Carson and David Letterman, died at the age of 42 after crashing his Chevrolet Corvair into a telephone pole in Los Angeles, California, while driving during a rainstorm. Kovacs, who often appeared on camera with his trademark cigar, was found by police with an unlit cigar, leading to speculation that he had been reaching for the cigar and lost control of his vehicle. The Corvair was later made infamous by Ralph Nader’s groundbreaking 1965 book “Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile,” about unsafe practices in the auto industry.