by Bob Zmuda
The only adjustment for casino management was shifting some of their entertainment resources from the traditional to the fashionable. They looked to the Saturday Night Live group as their yardstick of cool, and perceived Andy as the seminal artist among them. Because he was also on a hit sitcom, they thought he must be a big draw for young professionals. Thus strategized, Harrah’s called and said, “Andy Kaufman? Come on down!”
Andy wasn’t so sure about playing Vegas, despite its rich history and, of course, the important role it had served in Elvis’s career. The rub was that he would be constrained from experimentation and would instead be required to offer up his “killer set” night after night. I saw it as a good career move and wanted Andy to take it, but he needed some convincing.
My family had been vacationing in the Tahoe area since I was around twelve, so I knew one piece of information that might inspire Andy to take a gig with Harrah’s in Reno, if not the one in Vegas.
“You know, Andy, Harrah’s has a club in Reno. It’s huge.”
“So? Why would I go there? I don’t particularly want to go to Vegas. What’s with Reno?”
“Well, Reno’s surrounded by legal brothels.”
“Really? But doesn’t Vegas have them too?”
“They’re way outside Vegas, plus they aren’t as good, mostly rip-offs,” I offered knowingly. “There’s more in Reno and they’re a lot better.”
“Oh yeah? Lots of them?” I could tell I had him.
“Yeah, there’s a ton of whorehouses up there,” I assured him, “good ones.”
“They’re close by?”
“Fifteen minutes, tops. Most of them.”
“Okay, but what are the girls like?”
“They’re pretty decent, in fact lots of ‘em are drop-dead beautiful.”
Magic words. Andy got on the phone to George Shapiro, who got on the phone to Harrah’s and made them a counteroffer: Andy would perform, but it would be at their club in Reno.
On September 13, 1979, we held a lavish press conference in the major city nearest Reno: San Francisco. Harrah’s flew reporters in from all over the country, and once the room filled I counted upwards of seventy representatives of the national media. It was all quite civil … then disaster struck. A youthful, longhaired reporter claiming to be from the powerful Detroit Free Press stuck up his hand. When Andy made the mistake of calling on him, the man’s attitude spilled out like so much bile.
Apparently incensed by Kaufman’s attempts to “buy” the press with such transparent incentives as free tickets, hotels, and piles of food, the subversive fledgling newshound, who was obviously trying to make a name by assassinating a celebrity, began a rapid-fire series of embarrassing questions that left Andy fumbling for answers.
“Mr. Kaufman, at Carnegie Hall, on December sixteenth and seventeenth of 1978, is it true the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir appeared as part of your show?”
Andy nodded proudly. “Yes, that’s true.”
“And is it not a fact, Mr. Kaufman,” continued the ardent scribe, “that members of the Olga Fricker School of Dance appeared in place of the real Rockettes, and that the Manhattan City Choir performed in lieu of the actual Mormon Tabernacle Choir?”
Andy looked stunned and hemmed and hawed, but the reporter continued.
“Is it true, Mr. Kaufman, that the wrestling match at this same concert was fixed?”
“No.” Andy tried protesting despite his shock. “I, uh, we, the matches are all …”
“Mr. Kaufman,” continued the Doberman with the note pad, “would you agree that the wrestling segments of your concerts have no redeeming entertainment value whatsoever, and are in fact a carefully contrived opportunity for you to fulfill your insanely perverse sexual fantasies?”
This stuff was below the belt, and Andy was reeling. The rest of the reporters stood by, struck mute by their vicious colleague as his mouth continued to consume Kaufman’s ass. “Mr. Kaufman, isn’t it true there is a petition now circulating in New York City, containing more than five thousand signatures, demanding you be put under immediate and intensive psychiatric care?”
Andy’s mouth was moving but nothing was coining out. He was all alone up there at the podium and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to help him. He swallowed hard, desperately seeking the answer that would end this attack, but it didn’t come.
“Jaws” continued his merciless assault. “Isn’t it a fact, Mr. Kaufman, that you are in the process of opening Andy Kaufman Wrestling Palace franchises in every major city? Are they not just thinly veiled arenas of sick pleasure where sexual deviants like yourself are provided an opportunity to grope young women under the guise of wrestling?”
“No, that’s not true …”
“What exactly is your reasoning behind this wrestling routine? We’d like to know how you justify it.” Before Andy could answer, the man moved on. “Mr. Kaufman, you are aware, aren’t you, of the widely reported resentment growing among the cast of Taxi and in the Hollywood community in general regarding the fact you are uncommitted to your job, working on the Taxi set only two days a week while the rest of the actors are forced to work five? Don’t you think you’re trying to get away with a little too much? Don’t you feel the least bit guilty?”
Andy was ready to flee, cornered as he was, but the next words were the gunshot through the head that bounced fifteen ways and hit Connolly too. “Mr. Kaufman, one last question. Are you in fact Tony Clifton?”
Andy stood to run away, when a Harrah’s publicist descended upon this impossibly rude reporter and had him ejected from the proceedings. “Get your hands off me, you goons!” he screamed as he was carted off. Just as he got to the door, he grabbed the frame long enough to fire his last shot. “Isn’t it true you’ve been under psychiatric care by Dr. Joseph Troiani for the past eleven years for acute multiple personality disorder? Why are you hiding this from the American public?!”
Then he was gone. But the damage had been done. The questions had hit him alarmingly close to home. Though he tried to put on a happy face, the rest of the reporters scribbled down every damning word, and a very chastened Andy thanked them and retreated out the side door. Devastated, he jumped into a waiting limo and headed for the airport. A half block away from the hotel, he glanced out the window and spied the reporter who’d just ruined his career. He rolled down the window.
“Hey! You!”
The reporter walked over. “What?”
“Thanks a lot. I’m dead. You happy?”
The door opened and I climbed in. “Completely. You?”
“Perfect,” said Andy, and we laughed our asses off all the way to SFO. My accusations of the Rockettes and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir were accurate. Andy would have gone broke had I hired the real ones.
Embracing P. T. Barnum’s conviction that “it doesn’t matter what they say about you as long as they spell the name correctly,” our barometer of success soon became the degree to which we could hoodwink the press. Andy’s regular publicist, a lovely woman named Estelle Endler, was completely baffled as to what to make of our antics. Our brand of lunacy was something she had never witnessed, and she was constantly astonished by the amount of ink we were getting, not only in entertainment columns and the trades, but also in the sports pages and the hard news sections of various papers. We even developed an approach to con the “rags”: the tabloids such as the National Enquirer.
I learned about a reporter for the National Enquirer who would hang out in the bar at a particular West Hollywood nightspot and keep her ears open for industry-oriented dirt. I knew who she was and she knew who I was, but she didn’t know I knew who she was. Many a time when Andy and I wanted to plant disinformation I would go into that bar, feign intoxication, then spill my guts to some unsuspecting stranger as our “ear” eavesdropped. A week later the “bullshit scoop” would appear in black and white and Andy and I would die laughing and slap each other on the back for having pulled off a fru
itful commando raid on yet another unsuspecting journalist.
We had to choose an opening act for the Reno gig. Tony Clifton was out of the question. He required far too much effort, given his two and a half hours of makeup and the draining commitment the character demanded of Andy. Andy settled on a pretty and ambitious young actress-singer named Lisa Hartman. During the ‘77–’78 season, Lisa had starred in an ABC sitcom called Tabitha, a spin-off of Bewitched. (Years later, Lisa married country crooner Clint Black.)
Momentarily forgetting the allure of the local brothels, Andy seized on Lisa as his opener not because he thought she was overwhelmingly talented, but simply because she was a babe and he wanted to have her. Andy’s scheme was to get to Reno, settle in for a few minutes, then put the moves on Lisa. Unfortunately for the randy Mr. Kaufman, the best-laid plans didn’t account for Lisa showing up with her mother (who was also her manager) or for the main deal-buster: her boyfriend. Andy felt screwed. He’d hired Lisa assuming she would be grateful and ball him all week, only to learn that their passionate love affair was over before it began. On top of that, Andy later discovered that he hated her singing, but he had to tolerate her warbling every night as it filtered down to him in his dressing room.
When one is the headliner for Harrah’s in Reno you do not stay at the hotel, rather you are feted like a monarch in the sumptuous Harrah’s House, a fabulous, exclusive resort just outside town featuring indoor tennis courts, pools, and kingly accommodations, with a limo and servants at your beck and call. Obviously frustrated by his undeveloped tryst with Lisa Hartman, Andy came into my suite as I was unpacking, ready to play.
“So, where are these brothels?” he asked.
Just outside Sparks, Nevada, which is directly adjacent to Reno’s northeast side, lay the infamous Mustang Ranch, a collection of fenced buildings housing the most famous brothel on earth. We exited the limo and went to the first gate, and I buzzed, preparing to demonstrate to Kaufman my cathouse savvy.
We entered and the madam, a world-weary but cordial middle-aged woman, greeted us, “Good evening, gentlemen,” and escorted us to the main room. There we were given a look at a lineup of young ladies and asked to choose. I politely refused.
“Hey Zmuda,” whispered Andy, “what are we waiting for?”
I pointed to the bar. “Don’t worry, Kaufman, I know what I’m doing.”
We sat down in the bar, and in no time girls began hovering. “This way,” I said, after a few moments, “we can take our time and pick the ones we want. Have a drink, talk a little, you know, get to know them before deciding. Besides, if you choose one right away she’ll hit you up for a fortune.”
After fifteen or twenty minutes Andy had spoken with several girls but didn’t seem able to decide. A couple minutes later he turned. “I want them all,” he said emphatically.
“Don’t we all.”
“No, Zmuda, I’m serious, I want them all. Where’s the head lady?”
“Andy, are you fuckin’ nuts? There’s gotta be dozens of girls. Don’t play games here, they’ll take you seriously.”
“I am serious,” he shot back. I suddenly realized he was.
Generally, Andy liked his women tall and pretty. But Andy liked women, period. To their credit, the cross section we’d seen so far ranged from decent to total knockouts.
“These girls are pretty good-looking,” he said. “But the ones working, the ones we haven’t seen, they have to be as good, if not better, right? That’s why they’re busy, wouldn’t you think?”
“I suppose,” I said, not disagreeing with his logic.
“So that’s why I want them all.”
“Be serious,” I cautioned.
“I am. I’ve got a whole week. I can do it.”
Andy caught the eye of the madam and waved her over. “How many girls do you have?”
The madam looked curiously at him, not knowing why he cared. “I think about forty-two this week. Why?”
“I want them all, all forty-two. I’ll bet you I can sleep with all of them.”
“Bet me?” repeated the madam rhetorically. “I don’t take bets like that, honey.”
“No, no,” said Andy, “I’ll pay. Just a gentlemen’s bet. I’m here a week, over in Reno, so that’s, what, six a day? I can do it.”
Had he been anyone else, the woman would have had her burly security staff walk us to our waiting limo right then, but she knew who Andy was, and that sparkle in his eyes charmed the hell out of her. He negotiated a rate of around a hundred dollars per girl (twice the going rate at the time) and got started. Who but Andy Kaufman would walk into the Mustang Ranch and within twenty minutes make a package deal for the entire inventory? Mr. X came to mind.
That week became nuts. Get up in the morning, get Andy going, get him over to the Ranch to get started on his quota for the day, get him to Harrah’s for his first show, then back to the Mustang to continue his other “work,” back to Harrah’s for the ten o’clock show, then back out to the Ranch to finish off his six-pack of women. Andy’s act for Harrah’s had been streamlined for commercial viability. He didn’t push any of the audience’s buttons. He simply came out, did “Mighty Mouse,” played the congas, did Foreign Man, performed an old puppet routine, and closed with Elvis. Fifty minutes, no more, no less. His real performance was ongoing at the Ranch.
Andy’s endurance quest became a joke at the Mustang and had the girls talking. As I’ve said before, Andy never met a girl he didn’t love, and he made each one of them feel special. It got to be a contest for the girls as well, and as the week drew to a close, and time was running out, when our limo wasn’t shuttling them back and forth, the working girls were carpooling over to Harrah’s House to save Andy the commute time of the limo. Some were even throwing their bodies under him for free, so enthusiastic were they that he achieve his mark.
As our week came to an end, Andy not only was far too tired to remember he’d ever had a thing for Lisa Hartman, but also was actually in physical discomfort, his soldier rubbed raw by the friction of so many love canals. But if nothing else, Andy Kaufman was not a quitter. He was grimly determined to achieve his promised goal.
We were supposed to clear out of the Harrah’s House guest artist’s suite no later than two on the afternoon following our last night at Harrah’s, because the next headliner, singer John Davidson, was scheduled to arrive at that time with his family. The servants waiting on us had been buzzing furiously about the scores of prostitutes coming in and out of our suites, and word had gotten back to management. With our limo sometimes ferrying six hookers at a time, our relationship with the innkeepers of Harrah’s House had become strained, to put it mildly.
The woman managing the place had made a few “courtesy calls” to our door that morning to speed us on our way so her staff could come in and clear the carnage before the wholesome Davidson clan arrived. Unfortunately for her, Andy had just received his last order of a half dozen hookers and had his morning’s work cut out for him.
Only moments before the Davidsons were to show, with the irate manager planted at our door and prepared to deal sternly with the “perverts,” Andy still had a short stack of three hookers remaining on his plate.
“Mr. Kaufman?” she yelled through the closed portal. “We need the suite, now!”
I opened the door, and she began chewing me out because I was the show’s producer and apparent ringmaster to my “problem child.” “Mr. Zmuda, I must insist that you and Mr. Kaufman vacate immediately. We’ve been very patient …”
Suddenly some particularly heavy moaning penetrated Andy’s closed bedroom door and wafted out over us like a foul stench. The manager’s eyes widened in disgust, and I just shrugged. What was I to do? Andy was a goal-oriented man and was also just shy of a personal best. Who was I to spoil his hard-fought efforts? I winked and the manager slammed the door. A while later, the three remaining courtesans filed out of the bedroom, all short skirts and spandex, and just as Andy and I fled with them out the
back door, the squeaky-clean Davidson family walked in the front.
Apparently Harrah’s management was so happy with Andy’s act they forgave our behavior, for they invited us back two years later. Only that time they would book not Andy but a friend of his, an entertainer by the name of Tony Clifton.
Leaving behind our experiences in Reno — Harrah’s House, the casino shows, and, in particular, the beautiful ladies of the Mustang Ranch — was hard for us. We were already feeling nostalgic as we climbed aboard the plane back to L.A. It was as if we’d gone to summer camp, had fun far beyond anything we’d imagined, and now had to leave our new friends behind. We vowed to return.
Andy, always the childlike Don Juan who hated saying goodbye to any woman, kept in touch with many of the Mustangers and would, on occasion, fly one of them out to stay with him in Laurel Canyon for a few days at a time. Andy appreciated the purity of prostitutes. Unike the wannabes and starfuckers of Hollywood who would come on to you for who you were, looking for any edge to move up the ladder and deviously feigning regard for you to improve that position, the working girls exhibited no such pretenses. You paid them, and they were not required to like you or even pretend to, although it helped. That they always did like Andy was gravy to him, and he rewarded them with extended stays in town for which they were well compensated.
Some of the girls took no remuneration when they visited. To Andy that was the hallmark of sincerity in the world in which we lived, an often barren place where people, ideas, talent, and the ability to pose got you somewhere, and that somewhere was gauged only by power and money. That those young women made a living at having sex was of no consequence to Andy regarding his feelings for them — he was not judgmental and treated them like any other woman he knew, with courtesy and respect, and for that many of the girls became very fond of him. He developed some lasting friendships with the girls, and they kept in touch over the years. One of them even knitted him a sweater, and several made the trip to New York to attend his funeral. Andy once told me he admired their choice of occupation and added that if he had been born female he would likely have been a prostitute. It was the perfect occupation for someone who loved sex and wanted to operate outside of the system while making a comfortable living.
