Dec 15, 2020
In 2018, I was invited to the opening of the National Comedy Center in Jamestown New York. I had reached out to the center months prior to inquire if they had interest in showcasing some of the items I had from the estate of my late mother actress/comedian Edie Adams and that of her first husband, groundbreaking comedian Ernie Kovacs. They were receptive and that Summer I found myself at the NCC.
What struck me immediately was that the National Comedy Center had invited the estates and families of other comedians to the opening. I became friendly with Lucinda Winters-Nash, daughter of Jonathan Winters and her family via a good friend Dan Pasternack. It was at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Center that I had a minor epiphany. I was just one of many families who represented the estate of a celebrity who was well known to the public but only a child could tell you what that celebrity was really like. We had insider’s knowledge to the highs and lows of show business, how our parents acted as people not just how the world saw them as celebrities.
Moreover while we all shared somewhat similar experiences growing up as children of celebrities, we all had direct and firsthand knowledge of how great and sometimes how terrible celebrity could be. Somehow I had something in common with the people in the room, even though we had never met before. Be it George Carlin, Andy Kaufman, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Lenny Bruce or whomever, we all had something in common – our famous parents.
The more I talked to Lucinda and her family, the more I realized we all felt a need to preserve the legacy of our parents but we also had stories to tell. Our stories. Our parents might be famous, but only we saw them as real people. We were all slightly different versions of one another. It was then I thought there was more to this than just a ribbon cutting ceremony.
It took me a while to crystallize this feeling and that has become this podcast: Rarified Heir, a podcast about celebrity and the children of celebrities. Indeed everyone has a story. Here we all find our own voice. Take a listen to the Rarified Heir podcast.