Andy Kaufman Revealed!

by Bob Zmuda

  When we’d settled into our suite, a shiny-faced assistant producer knocked on the door.

  “Dinah has a cold today,” she said, “and though she’d love to sing that duet with Tony, she’s going to have to beg off. She says she hopes Tony understands.”

  He didn’t.

  “What in the fuck is this?” he screamed when I told him. “This is outrageous! Whaddya mean she ain’t singin’ the song? She can’t do that and call herself a professional!”

  As he ranted, the thin walls of the dressing room couldn’t contain him and soon we had another knock at the door, this time a senior producer.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked, more to quiet us down than to solve a problem.

  Tony strode out to confront her. “You bet, sweetheart! There’s plenty wrong! Dinah’s got a cold? Dinah’s sick? As far as Tony’s concerned … as far as Tony’s concerned, the show must go on!!! It does not care if you are sick!! You must put on the show!!! I used to play the Steel Pier, fifteen times a day!! You tell her to get her ass out there and sing that song with me if she knows what’s good for her!!”

  The producer left, white as a sheet.

  A moment later there was yet another knock at the door. “Five minutes, Mr. Kaufman.”

  “What did you call me? What did you call me?” yelled Tony.

  After an appropriate pause came a sheepish little voice. “Sorry, Mr. Clifton.”

  We then sent Jimmy the C as an emissary to convince Dinah’s people that Tony wasn’t going to take no for an answer on the duet issue. Shuttling back and forth between peace talks, a minute before show time Jimmy the C delivered the death blow. “They won’t budge. Dinah is really sick and is afraid her voice will crack.” In retaliation, Tony upended the Black Jack, draining the bottle. “Well, we’ll see about that,” he said ominously, and headed for the set.

  I whispered in Jimmy the C’s ear, “Kaufman couldn’t hold down a beer if his life depended on it.”

  We followed the now-weaving Tony out to the set. The studio audience was typical for Dinah! Lots of women, mostly over-weight, heartland-fresh tourists locked into their style the day they left high school. They were well meaning, but not terribly sophisticated, and when Tony blew in with three floozies on his arms, they thought he was for real and applauded. I got close to Tony and saw that he was drunk, no, make that smashed. He smelled like a crashed Jack Daniel’s truck.

  As the floor director gave him the countdown, he seemed to sober up for a second. I held out hope he’d just do the act and we’d leave. Meanwhile, a nervous Jean Stapleton (Archie Bunker’s wife, Edith, from All in the Family) was in her dressing room, preparing to go on next and quizzing the assistants about the commotion she’d heard.

  As the show came out of the spot break, Tony was in the back, microphone in hand. On cue he waltzed down the center aisle of the audience singing “On the Street Where You Live,” and, again, the ladies were all very impressed. At the end of his number, which was worse than usual because he was completely blitzed, Tony was welcomed by Dinah, a lovely, genteel southern belle. They shook hands and Dinah started in with the small talk that was sure to ignite Tony’s powder keg.

  “So, Tony, I understand you …”

  “Woah, woah, woah … lemme stop you right there,” he said. “I wanna introduce the three chickees, my ‘assistants.’”

  Our three female companions stood one at a time from their seats at the edge of the stage and were warmly encouraged by the audience. Dinah looked confused and I could see the crew scurrying to figure out what to do. Tony made them all wait as he introed the girls. That done, Dinah tried to continue, under the mistaken impression that it was still Dinah! she was hosting — she didn’t know it had become the Tony Clifton Show the moment they’d let him on the lot. “So,” she continued gamely, “I understand you have many albums out.”

  “What did you say?” he said challengingly.

  “I understand you have many albums out.”

  “I don’t have any albums.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you did.”

  “Why are you bullshitting these nice people?” he asked, and with that the honeymoon was over. The audience tittered as Dinah reeled herself back and noted, “Well, we’re going to have to bleep that out.”

  “I don’t have any friggin’ albums.”

  Dinah knew she was in a train wreck and tried to save herself. Realizing she’d just come out of a commercial and couldn’t seek the refuge of another, she thought fast. “Well, Tony, why don’t you sing another song?”

  “Why don’t we sing that duet?”

  “Oh, Tony, I’d love to but, as I said before the show, I have a terrible sore throat and couldn’t do it justice.”

  “A professional would sing,” countered Clifton.

  She smiled daggers. “Oh, some other time, Tony, I’d love to.” Like when they were ice skating on the River Styx.

  “I’ll help you out,” he said, looking to the audience, who, thinking Dinah was just being coy, began applauding. Screwed, Dinah smiled through the pain and agreed to sing with him, but with one caveat.

  “I don’t know the words.”

  Tony produced a lyrics sheet from his breast pocket and they commenced.

  “I can do anything you can do better …”

  “No you can’t!”

  “Yes I can …”

  “No you can’t!!!”

  “Oh yes I cannnnn!!!”

  At that point, it was evident that the poor, gentle Dinah would have gutted Clifton with a deer knife had she been wielding one. They finished their strained twosome and Dinah breathed a sigh of relief. Dinah wanted to get rid of him, but the floor director signaled she had several more minutes to kill.

  “I understand you’re quite a cook,” she lied.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Tony, “I learned in France.”

  “Well, let’s go over and watch you make your specialty.”

  They reset the cameras on the fly and walked over to the cooking area. Obsequious guest cohost Charles Nelson Reilly, usually zapping out numbing one-liners like a shtick-dispenser, was oddly quiet, apparently intimidated by the looming Clifton. Andy was over six feet tall and, with all his Clifton armor, looked formidable, less a lounge lizard than a lounge Komodo dragon.

  “What are you making, Tony?” Dinah asked, watching the clock.

  “Bacon and eggs, my favorite breakfast.”

  Tony proceeded to crack a full carton of eggs into a mixing bowl, making sure quite a few shells fell into the mix. As he stirred and dropped in the uncooked bacon, Dinah and Charles stood back, their postures oddly tensed, as if cringing in anticipation. Tony blithered on about his cooking skills, and finally, for Dinah, they’d run down the game clock. She smiled sweetly. “Well, Tony, we’re out of time, but I want to thank you for coming.”

  Tony Clifton’s next words rang like thunder. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not leavin’.”

  For a split second Dinah was speechless. “Well, Tony, I’m sure I’d like to have you stay, but I can’t. You have to leave.”

  “No, I ain’t leaving.”

  “Tony, you have to go, I’m sorry.”

  Again, Tony took his case to the people. “Everyone who wants to see me stay, applaud.” There were some isolated claps. “Okay, everybody who wants me to go, do the same.” The crowd erupted. After the noise died down, he shrugged. “Okay, it’s settled, I’ll stay.” That got a good laugh, but now Dinah was looking to her offstage muscle to toss Clifton. As the security guards moved toward Tony, he grabbed the egg whip. “Okay, I’ll leave, but not before I leave you with something, Miss Shore,” Tony said, whereupon he committed assault with a gooey weapon by pouring the eggs over Dinah’s head.

  The producers went to a spot break, and the shit hit the fan. Tony dropped the bowl and began running from the pursuing studio gendarmes. “Stay away from me! I’ll call a cop!”r />
  The men tried to corner him, and by then the audience was really wondering if this was real or not. Some people in the crowd understood and were screaming appropriately.

  “Get your hands off me,” screeched Clifton. “You can’t treat me this way! Do you have any idea who you’re fucking with? I’m gonna remember each and every one of your faces, and if you come to Vegas … you’re not gettin’ in!”

  Now it was a full-blown circus: Dinah was egg-dipped and ready for the deep fryer; Clifton was fleeing the authorities like Buster Keaton; and a panicked Jean Stapleton had rushed back into her dressing room and locked the door, fearing that that madman, whoever he was, had killed Dinah and was now after her.

  Finally, as Clifton was grabbed and physically ejected, and as the rest of our motley crew, Jimmy the C and the counterfeit bimbos, all raced to help Tony, I ran outside, jumped into the rented Cliftonmobile, and spun around the corner. I slammed to a stop by the door to the Dinah! set as the guards heaved Tony into the back seat. We exited the lot, rubber burning. As we made Sunset, the import of Tony Clifton’s coup d’état hit us, and like six high school kids who’d just put a flaming sack of dogshit on the principal’s porch and rung the doorbell, we burst into hysterical laughter. Yes, Tony’s act was irresponsible, childish, and impossibly rude, but it established one very important parameter for future potential employers: Don’t fuck with Tony Clifton.

  9

  Smoke and Mirrors

  I used to find myself really guessing which of those characters was closest to the real Andy. And I guess that is a tribute in and of itself, because you never really knew, and he would constantly surprise and fool me.

  GARRY SHANDLING

  Ninety-eight percent of Andy Kaufman’s performances were never recorded or, for that matter, even seen by formal audiences, for they took place on streets, in restaurants, and in myriad other public places. Most of the witnesses to those incidents didn’t know they were experiencing a performance, let alone that they had become an audience. But just as classic as Andy’s “Mighty Mouse” or “Caspian Sea,” those particular aesthetic treats were often as carefully planned as our stage shows and employed as much art of design. Yet because of their nature, much of Andy’s best work (and mine too) was cast to the winds like dandelions.

  If you flew in an airline’s first-class section during the fall of 1979, there is a chance you were Kaufmanized without knowing it. We always flew first class as a perk of working with OPM (Other People’s Money). Do you recall a nervous man with glasses and long hair, a frightened first-time flyer, who had the misfortune of sitting across from a man wearing dark glasses, a know-it-all on the subject of airline safety and crash survivability?

  “So,” said Sunglasses, “you’re scared? Lemme tell you, there’s nothin’ to be scared of.”

  “Well,” said Scared Guy, “I’m just nervous ‘cause I’ve never flown. I’ve always been afraid of flying.”

  “Oh, I understand,” soothed Sunglasses. “That’s why I want you to know, should we crash, the chances of you livin’ through it are decent, better than even odds, probably.”

  Scared Guy’s eyes widened. “Crash?”

  “Sure, it happens, but listen, unless we slam into a mountain or something, maybe clip a flock of birds or maybe another plane, we’ll live to tell about it. Chances are.”

  “You think that could happen?” said Scared Guy, now bordering on Terrified Guy.

  “What? Which one? Birds? Another plane? Hey, happens all the time, but don’t worry, the odds are good less than half the people will get killed. Your job is to be in the good half.”

  “My job?” said quiver-voiced Terrified Guy.

  “Sure,” assured the ever-confident Sunglasses. “See,” he said, opening his briefcase to display some graphic crash photos to bolster his case. “This crash, this one in Paris? Thoroughly avoidable, in my humble opinion.” He indicated some other photos. “But no chance of surviving that one. Door failed or something and boom, three hundred fifty people ground into fertilizer. And this one? Now, this was a biggy … two jumbo jets crashed into each other on the ground … now, of course that’s not gonna happen here ‘cause we’re airborne, but this one?” he said, pointing to another shot of carnage. “Whew, nearly three hundred people, engine falls off … boom! Hamburger.”

  “Hamburger?” said Scared-Shitless Guy, his voice faltering.

  The people in the neighboring seats were now sickened as Sunglasses tried to calm Scared-Shitless Guy with soothing talk of missing limbs and human shreds smaller than packs of matches.

  “Did you know,” asked Sunglasses, “Life magazine said sometimes they find people’s fingers embedded in the undersides of armrests? You know why?”

  His mouth moved, but Scared-Shitless Guy couldn’t even form a word.

  “I’ll tell you why,” said the expert. “‘Cause they got so scared tryin’ to keep the plane in the air they tore off their own lingers! Pretty wild, huh?”

  A flight attendant noticed the poor man’s extreme distress and warned Sunglasses. “Please, sir, you’re obviously upsetting him.”

  “Hey,” blustered Sunglasses, “he’s scared ‘cause it’s all in his mind. Once you face your fears, you’re okay.”

  The stewardess seemed unconvinced. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bother him anymore. Thank you.”

  The moment she left, Sunglasses turned back to the shaking man. “And this one?” he said, indicating a particularly gruesome crash photo. “See the dead man hangin’ from the tree? Ooboy, he musta fallen outta his seat from a good twenty thousand feet. Plane blew in midair.”

  “Blew?” said Shitting-His-Pants Guy as the tears began to flow. “In midair?”

  “Sure. Happens all the time.”

  That was too much, and the man burst into wracking sobs of agonizing fear.

  Sunglasses himself called the stewardess. “Listen to him! He’s a sniveling crybaby.” He turned to the crying man and slapped his arm. “What kind of man are you?”

  The stewardess was appalled. “Sir, please leave him alone!”

  “I will leave him alone when you get him to stop that bawling!”

  The stewardess tried comforting the stricken man but after a few more seconds of loud sobbing, Sunglasses was so irritated that, to the horror of everyone watching, he jammed a handkerchief into the guy’s mouth to shut him up. As the battle between the flight attendants and the cruel air-safety expert continued, my tears were real, caused by painfully stifled laughter. The ladies finally got Sunglasses to leave me alone, never knowing their nemesis was a guy who’d probably made them laugh at some point, either on Taxi or Saturday Night Live. But on that day, Andy was merely a reduced-strength version of Tony Clifton.

  Were you on that plane?

  Some other aerial hijinks occurred on a flight with our new friend Kris Kristofferson. At the time, airlines were experimenting with inducements to use their services, and some had installed small cocktail lounges in their 747s. American Airlines called theirs Lounge in the Sky, and to get there one climbed a circular staircase from first class into a cozy space complete with a bar and small piano. It had been only a few weeks since the new facilities had been introduced, and travelers were still unsure of their function.

  A curtain that separated the lounge from the stairs was drawn during takeoffs and landings, but was generally open in flight. We waited until there were five people in the lounge, and then I approached the flight attendants for their cooperation in our little scheme. They drew the curtain, and after a moment I stepped out and addressed the unsuspecting quintet, all seated around the piano, drinks in hand.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. American Airlines welcomes you to ‘Stars in the Sky,’ an evening of merriment and song. Tonight, we have three of the biggest names in show business.”

  Now I had their attention. Five heads swiveled as they were all thinking, Three big stars? He’s gotta be fooling.

  I continued
. “Without further ado, allow me to introduce them to you. First, you know him as the composer of such legendary hits as ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night’ and ‘Me and Bobby McGee,’ and as costar with Barbra Streisand a few years back in A Star Is Born. Ladies and gentlemen, give a big ‘Stars in the Sky’ welcome to Mr. Kris Kristofferson.”

  Their jaws hit the floor when Kris stepped out from behind the curtain, waved, and took a few bows. Before they could recover, I continued. “Next, you know him from numerous television appearances, from Saturday Night Live to The Tonight Show, he is currently the star of the hit sitcom Taxi, please give a warm welcome to Mr. Andy Kaufman!” Andy parted the curtain and bowed, and the people were now wondering, How the hell can American Airlines afford this? They applauded furiously, disbelieving their eyes, trying to figure out how to tell the folks back in Kansas about this encounter. I figured we had them, so I took it over the top. “Finally, he has been called the Chairman of the Board and Old Blue Eyes, but I call him Mr. Sinatra, ladies and gentlemen, please bring out the living legend himself.”

  Now they went nuts, clapping madly, completely in awe of American Airlines for assembling such powerhouse talent for such a small venue. But when Frank didn’t show, I broke character and explained the prank, and they all screamed at such a good joke. Then Kris and I and our five audience members accompanied Andy at the piano in a hearty rendition of “The Cow Goes Moo.”

  Andy was a good Jewish boy who loved and respected his parents and siblings. He looked forward to family get-togethers and shared many a holiday with them and their extended family of spouses, aunts, uncles, cousins, and whoever else would join in. So when George Shapiro called a few weeks before Thanksgiving and told Andy that a well-known resort in the Catskills, Kutscher’s, had offered him a gig for that night, Andy balked.

  “That’s the last place I want to be on Thanksgiving, George. I’m spending it with my family.”

  “That’s the beauty of it, Andy,” said George. “Kutscher’s will cover your whole family for the night, plus whoever else you want to bring along.”

  The idea that Kutscher’s would spring for the whole Kaufman gang appealed to Andy, who saw it as a chance to have a family reunion and Thanksgiving dinner all on someone else’s nickel. Andy wanted me along, as well as Greg Sutton, Andy’s musical director and childhood buddy from Great Neck. It promised to be a Borscht Belt kinda Thanksgiving.