Andy Kaufman

by Bob Zmuda

  In an interview that Andy did with talk-show host Tom Cottle, Cottle asked him point-blank if his rejection of Hollywood, or the whole body politic of the U.S. for that matter, was going to cost him in the end.

  Cottle: Let me ask you, Andy, and I don’t want to keep harping on this that you’re weird or anything, but the—are you—are you gonna pay some price or have you felt that you’re paying a price, NOT being the typical company guy, the organization guy, doing what everybody else does, getting into the lifestyle that everybody else does?

  Kaufman: If I was like that, I don’t think I could do what I do! If I was just regular normal, I wouldn’t be able to do the things that I do when I’m performing. Like my Elvis Presley imitation is the result of being alone for a year. I think it was 1966 or ’67 when Elvis was at a low point. You know, he did go through several years of being considered a has-been by most of the country except for the South, ‘cause I remember I was in New York growing up and I was the only one that I knew that liked Elvis Presley at the time. That’s when the Beatles were popular and a whole new kind of music took over until 1969 when he [Elvis] made his comeback so I was the only one that liked him and I would stay home most of the time and just play his records and imitate him, adopted him as a character, combed my hair like him, dressed like him in school. All my friends would call me Elvis, y’know, but it was—it was not at a time when he was popular at all! And people would laugh at me and scoff at me if I said I liked Elvis Presley! So because I had this taste that was different from other people, I was able to work on this unknowingly, not knowing that I would later become a performer, I was actually working on my Elvis Presley imitation most of the day for one year.

  Cottle: How did you feel when Elvis Presley died?

  Kaufman: I was sad and, uh, you know, like everybody else, y’know. I was a little—doubting whether it was true or not …”

  Obviously one can see where the spark that ignited his faking his death idea came from. He was fascinated with the idea that Elvis faked his death. Not for a moment did he believe Elvis did, but he knew a good idea when he heard one. Besides, Elvis’s career was at an all-time low when he died, just like Andy’s. It was as if Elvis’s and Andy’s career trajectory was at the same place: zero. If Elvis couldn’t fake his death, Andy would. He had to. If he’d stuck around, he’d be swept into the mindless vortex of Hollywood like everybody else. And being like everyone else was the worst thing that could ever happen to him. Being different was his pride and joy. It’s what made him a star, but at the same time it was a double-edged sword. America liked him strange but not too strange. The crazy uncle would be invited to the Christmas party but when he started to shit himself, he was unceremoniously asked to leave. Andy not only shit himself, he started making sculptures out of his doo-doo. Uncle Andy had to leave the building.

  ***

  The camera lights were blinding me as I was painting a web of fascination about Kaufman for a cute MTV interviewer. That, along with the fact that my vanity made me remove my glasses, meant I didn’t see the figure enter the room. He sat in the back and absorbed my Kaufman tales with fascination. When the camera lights went off and the interview ended, I reached inside my jacket for my specs, put them on, and saw him sitting there. It was comedian Robert Klein. He was to be interviewed after me for something on MTV I’ve since forgotten. When I drew near him, he said, “ZMU-DA. ZMU-DA. The man whose name is missing a vowel. It should be ZA-MUDA.” I said, “Hi, Robert.” He had appeared on my Comic Relief charity program in the past, so I knew him somewhat. “Great stories,” he said. “Thanks,” I said. Then it seemed like he needed to get something off his chest. He blurted out, “You know, nobody would give a damn about Kaufman if it wasn’t for you.” I said, “I beg your pardon?” “It’s true,” he continued. “Andy was a minor talent, but thanks to you, he’s achieved legendary status.” At first, I wasn’t sure how to take it. Surely it was a backhanded compliment. Klein said, “Don’t get me wrong. Andy was a lovely guy. I liked him. We often talked. But you’re taking him to a whole new level.” I said, “He died young and should be recognized for his work.” He countered, “Well, Za-muda, you’re a good friend. I hope his family appreciates all you’re doing for his memory.” “Oh yeah,” I said. “They do.”

  I lied. The Kaufmans, or, as they like to call themselves nowadays, the “Andy Kaufman Memorial Trust,” view Lynne and me as the enemy. They haven’t a clue as to the years of hard work she and I have put in to keep Andy out there in the public eye. They erroneously believe that America just woke up one sunny morning and decided their brother was a comedy icon. Yeah, sure. And Lana Turner was discovered at Schwab’s!

  When I asked one of the Universal executives, “Why did you take a risk on the Kaufman movie?” he laughed and said, “What risk? You already got an Emmy nomination on the NBC special and the ratings were good. That gave us a nice warm feeling as to where we could spend our money.” Not to mention that Lynne’s doc I’m from Hollywood for quite a few years enjoyed the title of “Most Watched Show” in the history of the Comedy Channel, as well as being named in Time magazine’s “Top 10 on TV” in 1992.

  It took me years to “condition” the public to Andy’s brilliance and now, with the movie coming out, I put the pedal to the metal. When I wrote Andy Kaufman Revealed!, my publicist at the time, Jodee Blanco, set up a cross-country tour paid for by Universal and Little, Brown books where I would speak on campuses during the day and do book signings at night. Lynne and I co-directed an A&E Biography and did a retrospective on Kaufman. When it came out, Variety said, “The Andy Kaufman Biography was the best of the whole series.” By now, people were being “conditioned” to think about Kaufman again, and E! True Hollywood Story, not wanting to be left out, called and asked for footage. Why not? I was determined to make Andy the star he always wanted to be. I didn’t let the fact that he was supposedly dead stand in my way. I would keep Andy alive until his return. I am a company man and have worked diligently for my boss going on forty years now. Did I get a gold watch or even a thank you from the Kaufman estate? Hell, no. Instead, the opposite took place. The family—or I should say the “Andy Kaufman Memorial Trust”—turned on me. First, they hated the movie, then Clifton, and then they hated my book. In fact, Andy’s sister, Carol, called me in a rage, yelling at me, “How could you talk about Andy’s sex life? It was disgusting.” I told her, “Don’t be so prudish. Andy had a great sex life and it should be applauded.” At first I thought the Kaufmans were having a hard time adjusting to the fact that Andy now belonged to the public. But I soon realized something else was going on and maybe it didn’t have to do with Andy or me or any of us. Maybe it had to do with the Kaufmans themselves.

  When the Kaufmans heard of Andy’s condition, they all flew out to be with him—Stanley, mother Janice, Michael, and Carol. The first thing Andy decided to do was put them all, including himself, in family counseling. Sound strange? Not if you knew Andy. Since they arrived on his doorstep, and this might be the last roundup, he had a few things he wanted to say. So he hired fellow TM-er John Gray, the same therapist who later wrote the bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, who was holding family death counselings at the time. He was pretty much a New Age therapist. This was for people who knew they were dying and wanted to get it all off their chests before they went (something Andy would do even knowing he was faking his death). Remember, he said he’d return in twenty to thirty years, which meant he wouldn’t be talking to them for a long, long time. He had a lot to unload. Lynne told me the sessions, which she occasionally attended, became screaming sessions on Andy’s part, letting them know he wasn’t very pleased with them. Andy also brought in his manager, George Shapiro, and gave him a tongue-lashing too, basically letting him know that he felt George wasn’t supportive of his creativity, and that because of them he would soon die never achieving the stature that he felt he deserved. Stanley said, “Dr. Gray was important to Andy. We went through two to three boxes o
f Kleenex per session.”

  When I heard about the sessions, I asked Andy if he wanted me there. He said, “Absolutely not. You and Lynne were the only ones who supported me wholeheartedly.” It was that kind of mutual support I also received from Andy ever since I’d known him. If he was going to die, which he supposedly did on May 16, 1984, I took it upon myself to keep the home fires burning until his return.

  I started by bringing Tony Clifton back on the one-year anniversary of his supposed death. Clifton would make an appearance at Mitzi Shore’s The Comedy Store. (They used it as the ending for the film.) So I hired a full-time publicist, and then I hit the airwaves, doing any cockamamie radio station that would have me. I worked it tirelessly for six months, made the anniversary a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society (since Andy supposedly died of cancer), and even corralled a bunch of comedy celebrities to attend, such as Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, etc. When Clifton hit the stage, everyone went crazy, thinking, “Could it be true?” Remember, back then nobody even suspected that I had been playing Clifton all those years, as it hadn’t come out yet. To add to the mystery, I stood in the audience myself applauding Clifton with everyone else. People left The Comedy Store that night stunned. Had Kaufman returned?

  Another incredible thing happened that night also. The charity Comic Relief was born. Like I said, it was the first charity event I ever mounted, and it just so happened that around the same time across the pond, a man by the name of Bob Geldof had mounted a gigantic charitable music concert called Live Aid. It was on everybody’s radar. My ex-comedy team partner Chris Albrecht had just landed a job at HBO, his title being senior vice president, original programming, West Coast. I went to see him, and soon we mounted the Live Aid version of comedy, Comic Relief, hosted by Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, and Billy Crystal. With my new title of president and founder of Comic Relief, and now HBO utilizing me in their in-house publicity department, I was able to do more press, this time on somebody else’s nickel. Although my main job was to speak about the charity and Williams’s, Crystal’s, and Goldberg’s contributions, sooner or later the interviewer couldn’t wait to hear Kaufman stories. I kept Andy out there in every interview I did from 1984 to the present. Hundreds of interviews. I even worked him into every Comic Relief we did on HBO.

  Slowly but surely, because of all of this, Andy’s career began to rise from the ashes. It took a momentous leap years after Kaufman’s supposed death, when Shapiro and West were producing the hottest show on TV, Seinfeld. I had read in the trades that NBC was renegotiating Seinfeld’s contract, which I realized would have put Howard and George in a good position to get other products on the air. I persuaded them to go with me to Rick Ludwin, head of specials at NBC, to pitch a comedy salute to Andy Kaufman. Rick had to take the meeting. No way was he going to insult Howard and George. But doing a prime-time, one-hour comedy salute to a sit-com performer who had supposedly died ten years earlier? A ludicrous proposal to Ludwin. But I had two cards up my sleeve. One was that in 1992, on the eighth anniversary of Andy’s supposed passing, which was Comic Relief V, I had seized that opportunity to capture every major comedian on the show to tell his or her favorite Kaufman story to my behind-the-scenes documentary crew. My friend and executive producer, John Davies, and I then edited up a great ten-minute “sizzle reel” for Ludwin to see all these big stars talking about Andy. Robin, Whoopi, Billy, Letterman, Jay Leno, Chris Rock … the list was endless. Since this was going to be basically a “clip” show anyway, half of everything we needed was already in the can. Ludwin was pretty impressed, but still leery. When he stated, “It’s been ten years. I don’t know if kids today would remember him,” that was the cue I had been waiting for and pulled the second ace out of my sleeve. I played him the number-one song on the charts. It was R.E.M.’s Man on the Moon. I handed him a lyrics sheet. Rick was amazed. “I love this song. I didn’t know it was about Andy.”

  Mott the Hoople and the game of Life

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

  Andy Kaufman in a wrestling match

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

  That year we shot A Comedy Salute to Andy Kaufman for NBC. Not only was it a critical success, but it was even nominated for an Emmy. The one-hour special aired in prime time to great ratings. I even flew in Michael Kaufman, Andy’s brother, and Andy’s daughter, Maria, to end the show. Kaufman was back, thanks to yours truly.

  Others, of course, helped me to mount the comedy salute, including Davies, a brilliant producer in his own right, along with author Bill Zehme, RJ Johnson, Phil Kruener, and Bibbi Herrman. And Shapiro/West’s power position didn’t hurt, either. But at the end of the day, my Comic Relief footage, with the biggest stars in comedy, did the trick. You see, I never stopped working for my boss. And when he returns, he’s going to owe me thirty years of back pay. Hear that, Andy?

  CHAPTER 7

  Faking Death

  Ring …

  B: Hello?

  A: Bob, it’s Andy.

  B: Andy, it’s four a.m.

  A: Sorry, but I decided to do it.

  B: [Groggy] Do what?

  A: Fake my death.

  B: Great! Call me tomorrow.

  A: Bob, I’m not joking. I shouldn’t even be saying this over the phone. Can you meet me at Canter’s?

  B: You mean now?

  A: Yeah, it’s important. This might be the most important day in my entire career.

  [Thirty minutes later, I’m nursing a bowl of matzo-ball soup. Kaufman arrives ten minutes later. He sits down and orders a bowl of chocolate ice cream.]

  B: That stuff’s gonna kill you.

  A: I’m a dead man anyway. [He laughs.] OK, here’s what we need to do.

  B: Stop right there, white man. What do you mean “we”? Andy, if I told you once I told you a thousand times: I think your faking your death is brilliant, and I know if anyone can pull it off, it’s you. But if you’re truly serious about doing it, you’ve got to count me out. This is one put-on I can’t help you with.

  A: Why not?

  B: Well, for one thing, it’s illegal. People fake their deaths every day.

  A: They do?

  B: Of course they do. Some of them don’t want to pay alimony or child support, or they’re looking to rip off the insurance company on their death benefits. Andy, you’re in SAG, AFTRA, the Writers Guild. Your dad probably has a large death benefit on you already. If you come up dead, those companies are going to pay large death payoffs to your family, especially since you’re so young. If they find out you’re not really dead, you’ll probably get a jail sentence.

  A: But they’re not going to find out.

  B: But if they do, you’ll be in a hell of a lot of trouble. And I’m not going to be in it with you. Besides, if you really go ahead with this, you shouldn’t tell anyone, especially me. It’s that special. Besides, you can’t ask me to lie to your mother about you being dead when you’re not. It would kill her. I couldn’t do that.

  [I could see what I was telling him was beginning to get through to him.]

  B: Andy, if you do this, really do it, you’ve got to convince even me that you really died. If you can do that, you’ve achieved the greatest put-on of all time.

  A: Convince you?

  B: Yes, convince me. And seeing that we’ve been talking about this for three years now, I don’t know how that is remotely possible.

  A: Well, I see I have my work cut out for me then.

  Two years later, Andy Kaufman died. I went to his funeral. I didn’t shed a tear. In fact, I had to bite my lip a few times to keep from exploding in laughter. At one point, I looked over to Bob Morton (Morty) a few pews over. Morty was a good friend of Andy’s and was the executive producer of the Letterman show. I think he was biting his lip too, trying not to laugh. Everyone was expecting Andy to jump out of the casket at any time. I knew he wouldn’t—that would have been too easy. Besides, being in it for the long run (thirty years), Kaufman would never give the
trick away. He was old-school wrestling. You never admitted hoaxes … ever. It was a sacred code between the wrestlers back then and Kaufman. Lynne and I adhered to the same code.

  I know this must all sound strange to the layman. But those of you who know about “the code” understand exactly what I’m talking about and how one would go to the grave keeping the secrets. Many have. The only reason I’m giving it up now is that Andy set a time limit on this one. Thirty years. So I’ve kept my part of the bargain and kept my mouth shut. But no more. The prank’s over. I want him back and he’s coming back.

  Lynne, on the other hand—I really can’t tell if she is in on it or not. Her thinking I’m insane believing Andy’s alive might just be her working reverse psychology on me. She now believes the “secret” Andy made her and me promise to keep from his parents may just be the tip of the iceberg. His being gay was just half the story.

  I’d be lying if I said the other half didn’t cross my mind also. It had crossed many others’ minds as well. But the mere thought of it was so forbidden, so unspeakable, no one dared utter the words. Lynne said, “Why was he so insistent that his parents never know?” Was the secret even darker than we all imagined?

  I leafed through the book I had written about Andy nearly fourteen years ago and I listed it then, but more to scoff at the possibility than anything else. Was I wrong? Had the truth been staring me in the face for so long and my own personal homophobic denial made it more than I wanted to bear? Somewhere in my psyche was it a lot easier to believe he faked his death than to face such a horrible possibility? Did Andy Kaufman, in fact, die on May 16, 1984, and did he die of AIDS?