text: In keeping with Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Ernie's best friend Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy. George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
  He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
  Tax evasion
  A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by his wife, Edie Adams.