Andy Kaufman

by Bob Zmuda

  One day while filming, the true test of the Courtney/Jim chemistry would be played out in an intimate scene between Lynne and Andy. The set was cleared with only technicians essential to the shoot remaining. Jim (Andy) and Courtney (Lynne) are in bed together. Milos softly whispered, “Action!” In the scene, Andy is distraught after being kicked out of the TM movement. It’s Lynne’s job to make him feel better, but there’s a big problem: Courtney’s not feeling it. She said, “Milos, can we cut?” The camera stopped rolling. Not good. She then asked for Lynne. The whole production came to a screeching halt until Lynne could be located. Once she arrived, Courtney pulled her aside and said, “I needed to be near you to pick up your calming energy. I went to the MTV Music Awards last night, and I’m still in my ‘corporate rock star’ persona. It’s not working for the scene. I need to get into my Laurel Canyon hippie mode.” She then held Lynne tightly, drawing in her energy. Afterwards she hopped back into bed with Jim and nailed the scene in the next take. Courtney’s a pro. She knew just what she needed—“the Lynne fix”—got it, and delivered the goods. It’s a shame she doesn’t choose to go out for more roles. She is one hell of an actress.

  ***

  Probably the most dangerous, yet most successful, Kaufmanesque antic that was pulled off in the filming of Moon was Jim Carrey’s neck injury. It was art imitating life, or vice versa, when Jim suffered the injury while filming a scene with the same professional wrestler who once put Kaufman in a neck brace, Jerry “the King” Lawler. What really made it strange is that they were recreating the exact scene when Lawler (on April 5, 1982) also sent the real Andy Kaufman to the hospital.

  Tensions ran high on the set when Lawler first showed up, hoping to meet Jim Carrey. Instead, he met a totally deep-in-character Jim, a bitter rival. Jim started in where Andy had left off years ago when he was still alive and had suffered a serious neck injury when Lawler was wrestling him and gave him the notorious “pile driver,” one of the most illegal moves in wrestling, which has left many over the years paralyzed. Jim would seek Andy’s revenge.

  The first day on the set, Jim attached a paper sign with tape to Jerry’s back without his knowing it. It read, “Hulk Hogan wannabe.” All day, Jerry walked around the set with cast and crew laughing at him and him not knowing why, until the very end of the day, when Andy/Jim pointed it out. Jerry’s face turned red and he was truly embarrassed. Andy would further get his goat by mockingly talking to him in an unflattering hillbilly accent: “You’re in my neck of the woods this time, Lawler, and I own this town.” On another day, Andy would taunt Lawler by tossing him a bar of soap and saying, just as Andy had done years prior, “This is a product we’ve been using up North for some time now. Perhaps you can introduce it to the South. It’s called ‘soap.’ Spell it with me. S-O-A-P—soap.” Another time, he’d toss him a roll of toilet paper, saying, “This is another product we’ve been using up North. It’s called TOILET PAPER. If you folks down South used this, there wouldn’t be this stench in the air.”

  This kind of taunting went on day after day as long as Jerry was on the set. It was taking its toll on Lawler, who was not a method actor like Jim and subsequently told the line producer, Michael Hausman, that this behavior was uncalled for and might lead to a real physicality if Andy didn’t stop. Hausman contacted Jim’s management with his concerns that someone could get hurt. Once Andy heard of the complaint, instead of stopping, he only increased the taunts. More than a few times, Lawler would go after him, but thanks to Hausman, who had posted more security to keep the two apart, blood had never spilled (so far). Yet unfortunately, there was one more scene to be shot with Lawler and Andy in two days, and in this one, because it was a wide shot, Universal security couldn’t be in the frame. Tensions ran high.

  Everyone was concerned, so much so that line producer Michael Hausman pulled me aside and asked if he could speak off the record. He had never liked the idea that we were filming a doc during the making of his and Milos’s film, but had learned to bite the bullet and live with it. But he dropped all pretense and began to talk to me man to man.

  He truly was concerned for Jim’s safety. Jerry Lawler’s manager, Larry Burton, had warned him numerous times that Jim’s methodology of taunting Jerry was causing Jerry to come unhinged and if it didn’t stop, he could not guarantee what Jerry might do. Hausman told me he and Milos totally understood the acting approach Jim was taking but felt that … I finished his thought, “A Southern boy like Jerry doesn’t appreciate a sophisticated New York City Lee Strasberg method acting technique.” He said, “Your words, not mine.” If I could get Jim to lay off a little, he’d appreciate it.

  That night, I couldn’t sleep. I really didn’t want to interrupt Jim’s process and yet at the same time, I didn’t want to see him hurt and the picture shut down. Over lunch the next day, I decided to talk to him about it. He saw that I was truly concerned for his safety and agreed to stop taunting Jerry, so much so that he thought it would be a great idea to bury the hatchet and invite Jerry and Larry to his house that evening for dinner. Great!

  He sent me as his emissary to speak to Jerry and Larry about it. They accepted the invite. It was for 9:00 p.m. at Jim’s, and Carrey was going to have his personal chef pull out all the stops and create a truly spectacular feast for the four of us. Jerry asked what they should wear. I told him casual would be fine.

  I got to Jim’s house about 8:30. His chef was in the kitchen cooking up a storm. The main course would be beef Wellington (one of my favorites). I started lifting lids, seeing what other culinary delicacies awaited us. I was just about to lift one more when the chef stopped me and, with a sly smile on his face, said, “Don’t look. That one’s a surprise!”

  I left for the dining room where Jim was arranging the table himself, laying out his finest silver and imported French place settings. I noticed that the settings (only two) were at the end of the table where Jim and I were to sit. Jim had already uncorked one of his finest bottles of wine to breathe and two crystal glasses awaited, but nothing at the other end of the table where Jerry and Larry were to sit.

  Jim had a devilish look on his face. I said, “What are you up to?”—fearing the worst. Here was Jim’s plan: Once his guests arrived, he would sit them at the other end of the table. The chef would enter, pour wine for Jim and me and then begin to serve us, all the time leaving Jerry and Larry at the other end with nothing. Only after we were served would the chef walk over to Jerry and toss two paper plates in front of them. Then he would leave and reenter with that mysterious pot he wouldn’t let me see before. It contained hot dogs and beans, which he would unceremoniously dump on their plates. Next he would plop down two cans of beer, while Jim would say, “I thought this might make you feel more at home!” I placed my hands over my eyes and shook my head, saying, “Oh, no!”

  I thought to myself, “Jerry’s going to kill him.” Soon it was 9:00, then 9:20—9:45—10:00. Still no Jerry and Larry. Jim was beginning to fume. The perfectly prepared medium-rare beef Wellington was beginning to turn well-done. Jim had me call Larry. He answered. It sounded like he was in a bar. I said, “Jesus, where are you guys? Jim’s growing impatient!” Larry said, “What do you mean?” “What do you mean, what do I mean? You were supposed to be here over an hour ago.” “We were?” Larry acted dumb, as if he didn’t know about it. Obviously they were jerking Jim off. I hung up and had to break the bad news to Jim that he’d been stood up. Jim was at first hurt and then furious! Jerry had decided to play hardball and had no intention of showing up. Jim sent the chef home. The beef Wellington—overcooked and dried out—went to the dogs, and Jim started to drink and plot his next move.

  Soon, he jumped up, ran to the phone and began to dial. “Hello, is this Le Dome? This is Jim Carrey. I know you’re closing in a few minutes, but could you possibly stay open? I’ll be there in a half hour with a party of eight. You will? Great! See you soon.” Next Jim had me call Larry back and tell him that Jim had just made a reservation for all
of us at Le Dome, and Jim was calling four of the top call girls in Hollywood to join us. The entire evening would be on Jim!

  I’m thinking to myself, “To hell with the beef Wellington, these four dishes Jim was going to call up would easily make up for it.” Next I waited for Jim to call “the lay-deees”! Instead, he walked into the kitchen and came out with the pot of hot dogs and beans and asked if I wanted any. I said, “Hell, no, I’ll eat at Le Dome.” He said, “We’re not going to LE DOME.” I said, “What about the call girls?” He said, “There are no call girls. I made it up. I’m gonna give Jerry a taste of his own medicine.” He had me call Le Dome thirty minutes later. Jerry and Larry had arrived and were waiting. The maitre d’ asked how soon Jim would arrive. After all, he had kept his entire staff over just for him. Jim had me say, “We’re on our way.” Another forty-five minutes later, Jim himself called back, and he told the maitre d’ he’d changed his mind and wasn’t coming. They should tell the two gentlemen (Jerry and Larry) to leave. The maitre d’ wasn’t too happy about it until Jim told him that he would compensate him and his whole staff well for staying open, which I found out later he did—very well, I might add. Usually I would have found the whole night’s episode amusing, but I couldn’t help shake the ominous thought that kept clouding my mind … “If Jerry wasn’t thinking of hurting Jim before, after all this, he’ll kill him!”

  The next day the stage was set for a major confrontation—Jim and Jerry wouldn’t even look at each other until they started filming. I told Lynne no matter what happened to keep shooting, knowing she would anyway.

  The scene was a much-detailed recreation of Kaufman’s famous wrestling match with Lawler in ’82 at the Memphis Coliseum, when Kaufman and Lawler faced off with each other alone in that “squared circle,” the wrestling ring. To make matters worse, Andy/Jim wanted Lawler to actually give him the “pile driver” for the cameras. Milos and Universal insisted that a stunt man be used. Carrey, who, like Tom Cruise, prides himself on doing his own stunts, vehemently fought that decision. I sat in on a meeting between Milos and Jim on the subject. Milos described how he would “cut away at the right moment to a crowd scene and the stunt man would come in and then he’d cut back while Lawler did the ‘pile driver’ to the stunt man and no one would even notice.” Jim disagreed and said, “Bullshit. Everyone will notice that. Filmgoers aren’t idiots. They know the cutaway masks the switch with the stunt double.” Both were immovable on their positions.

  Production was on hold for a couple of hours with 600 extras standing by, enjoying the free donuts at the old Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. As the clock and costs clicked away, the Universal lawyer and the insurance company on the film discussed it. What made matters worse was that since this was Jerry’s last day and he was already pissed off, he demanded to be paid in full before he shot his last scene. This sent a message to everyone that he really was going to “pile drive” Andy/Jim and reap the press reward of hurting him. Finally, the insurance company made a ruling: the “pile driver” would be done by the stunt man, not Jim. Carrey was quite angry, but there was nothing that even the $20 million gorilla could do about it. The insurance company carries the bond on the entire film; what it says goes.

  Jim played the scene and then, just at the given moment, he reluctantly stepped aside and the stunt man stood in for him and received the “pile driver” from Lawler. It’s a pretty spectacular move to watch. First, Jerry lifts his opponent high in the air and then flips him upside down, holding him by his legs. With the man’s head between Jerry’s legs, he then himself leaps in the air, tucks his own legs in, and “pile drives” the man’s head into the mat. The trained stuntman knew to tuck his head at the last moment, thus missing the impact. Jim knew the tuck also, but with the hostility in Jerry, Lawler could have easily messed up the move and seriously hurt Jim.

  With the scene safely in the can and a break in the filming, everyone dropped their guard. That’s when it happened. Suddenly, Andy/Jim yelled at Jerry, “How was Le Dome last night?”—then spit a hawker directly in his face. Lawler snapped, five days of insults fueling his revenge. In the blink of an eye, he violently pulled Carrey by the hair and threw him to the ground in a neck-crunching headlock. Jim went down hard, for real, and blacked out. Pandemonium broke out as Universal security tackled Lawler before he could bestow more injuries on Carrey. The 600 extras who witnessed all this were quickly ushered out of the building. Paramedics rushed in and gently lifted Jim onto a stretcher. Linda Fields (Jim’s assistant) was in tears. Lynne, who dutifully was capturing all this for our documentary, was quickly accosted by Hausman, who blocked the lens with his hand and screamed at the top of his voice, “SHUT THAT CAMERA OFF! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? JIM’S REALLY HURT.” But Lynne, a graduate of the Andy Kaufman School, kept the camera rolling while holding it down by her side, appearing not to be videotaping. She had early on in production put a piece of black tape over the red light which signified that the camera was running so she could capture moments discreetly. Jim was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital. Filming came to a halt and everybody was sent home. Lynne and I jumped into my car and raced to the hospital. By the time we arrived, every major media outlet in LA was gathering. This was a big story—”Jim Carrey was seriously injured on the set of a major motion picture.” Jim’s manager, Eric Gold, was surrounded by cameras and was giving statements to the press saying, “Jerry Lawler acted unprofessionally and hurt my client.”

  Lynne and I were led into a room where we saw Jim propped up in bed with a neck brace on. He was going in and out of consciousness. Assistant Linda Fields was beside herself in tears. This was bad. Lynne and I felt awful. After all, we had been goading Jim to take risks like Andy used to and now he was seriously hurt, perhaps paralyzed for life. How would they ever conclude the film without him? Everybody was ushered out of his room except Lynne, Jim’s sobbing assistant Linda, and me.

  Once they all left, Linda stopped crying and started to laugh. Jim’s eyes popped open, and he looked at Lynne and me and said, “Gotcha!” The son of a bitch had even fooled us. Damn, Jim was getting good at these Kaufman pranks. Real good. So was Linda. We all switched back into concern mode with Jim feigning unconsciousness when a couple of nurses came in to wheel Jim into X-ray. Jim, a real Kaufmanesque trooper, actually went through countless X-rays (and radiation) to pull off the scam, just like Andy had done. I thought back to the day Andy had called me and said, “How much radiation or chemo could a healthy person take without hurting themself?” I was reliving the past. A few hours later, the hospital released a statement saying, “There was no major injury.” Still, Jim wanted to wear a neck brace like Andy himself did.

  That evening, I sat with Jim, Lynne, and Dotan, Jim’s bodyguard, in Jim’s suite at a swanky downtown LA hotel (paid for by Universal) and flipped the TV from station to station. It was the lead story on every news outlet. Kaufman would be proud. And he was, as Jim had truly become Andy.

  Over the years, many people have approached me and said if they liked the film or not. Some do, some don’t. But they all agreed on one thing, and that is that Jim pulled it off. He is probably the most talented individual I’ve ever met. No one works harder than him. Coming from a blue-collar family, he has this extraordinary work ethic. They may pay him $20 million a picture, but he’s worth every penny of it. Meeting and working closely with him has been one of the high points of my life and Lynne’s.

  But the greatest high point of my life will be when Andy Kaufman himself walks on stage the night of his return. I will have his original conga drums set up. Andy, I know you’re reading this, please come back. Do it for me. Do it for Dr. Zmudee. I don’t know where you’ve been all these years, and maybe you’ve changed your mind about returning, but you need to follow through on what you told Lynne—you’d “return in thirty years.” Bask in pulling off your greatest illusion. Please join us that night. I’ll have a limo waiting backstage. If you just want to pop in and wave and disappear back into obscurity, fin
e. Just make an appearance. PLEASE!!!

  ***

  Ring …

  B: Hello!

  A: Hey, Bob. It’s me, Andy.

  B: What’s up?

  A: Guess where I spent my afternoon.

  B: Where?

  A: A cancer ward in San Francisco.

  B: How lovely. Didn’t people recognize you?

  A: I did a toned-down version of Clifton, without the jacket, of course. It made me come to the realization that it’s not just about faking my death, it’s about faking my dying also.

  B: So is it doable?

  A: Oh, yeah. Getting a real person dying of cancer is definitely the way to go. For one thing, they all begin to look alike at the end. You can’t even tell the men from the women.

  B: So what are you going to do—ask one of them to die for you?

  A: They’re dying anyway. I need to appeal to their sense of humor, see if they’re willing to pull off a prank with me.

  B: Sense of humor? Andy, they’re dying!

  A: So? That’s just when you might need it most. If I could find one who might already be a fan of mine, I think I could pull it off.

  B: Well, when that day comes, make sure you leave me your little black book.

  A: My black book … why?

  B: Because there’s going to be a lot of grieving girls who are going to need a big shoulder to cry on.

  CHAPTER 4

  Don’t Ever Leave Me Alone with People

  It wasn’t even 8:00 a.m. when the cast and crew started to gather around the craft service truck that sat in the parking lot of Chasen’s Restaurant in Beverly Hills. We were out on location, and Chasen’s, which had been closed for a number of years, was doubling as an Italian eatery where George Shapiro (Danny DeVito) first spots Clifton singing badly and humiliating members of the audience … especially me (Paul Giamatti). Suddenly the ground begins to vibrate—was this the big quake that had been predicted for years? Wrong! This was a dozen Hells Angels’s motorcycles turning into Chasen’s parking lot, filling the already polluted LA air with a white cloud of high octane. The sound was deafening.