by Bob Zmuda
Meanwhile, I was wallowing in the excessive world of Tony Clifton. As the first week passed I was like a kid in a candy store. Now I was the star and not Andy’s sideman Bugsy — and it was a life really easy to get used to. One night after I’d finished my second show I was puttering in my dressing room when a lovely young showgirl knocked on my door. She claimed she was a big fan of Andy’s, so I decided to stay in character, and within a few minutes was suggesting we go out that evening. Not one to miss an opportunity, very soon we were having sex (picture me still fully dressed as Clifton), and at that point, despite my pleasure, I realized it was the height of absurdity: she was blowing Andy, not me. I was now Tony Clifton, comic incubus.
She became suspicious after a while when I wouldn’t remove my facial pieces or drop out of character, but by then the fat was in the fire and I dared not. I gave her some lame excuse that I had only the single set of latex appliances because the rest had been lost, and once removed they were useless. To shore up my argument I also pointed out I was an artist, therefore staying in character was essential and she should always address me as Tony. She bought it hook, line, and sinker, and we had no further problems. Sure, she was a starfucker, but she was a very sweet star-fucker. My mind reeled over what her reaction might be if she found out her “star” was the other Tony Clifton. We dated for the rest of the run, and it was exciting, if not dangerous as hell. Not once did I remove the disguise.
The night of the last show I drove up to the Hormsby House, where Andy and I had agreed we needed to unwind with a prank. Since I was still wearing Clifton’s facial appliances (each set lasted only one wearing, and we had plenty more in L.A.), I slashed the latex and then covered myself in fake blood. Looking like Jason Voorhees had been working me over with his ax for a good ten minutes, I lay down in front of the elevator and Andy stood in his doorway a few yards away to watch what happened. It was very late and people were coming back from various shows in the area. We didn’t wait long before the elevator opened and an older couple in splendid evening attire prepared to step out. What they saw was Tony Clifton on the carpet at their feet, lacerated and bleeding to death.
“Get outta here! They’re killin’ people up here! Run away! Save yourselves!” Tony screamed, a frothy pink foam rimming his mouth. “Get away! Live!”
The horrified looks on their faces was worth a fortune. As soon as the elevator closed we darted into Andy’s room and waited for the fun. It didn’t take long before the place was crawling with security guards and police. They knocked on the door and Andy innocently told them he hadn’t heard a thing.
Back in L.A., a few months passed, and Andy got a phone call — from my Harrah’s showgirl. I had forgotten I’d given her Andy’s phone number. When she’d asked for it, what was I to do? We’d been having sex for ten days, so I felt I had to comply and give her Andy’s actual number, but I didn’t think she’d really use it. She did, and Andy called me in a panic.
“She’s flying in tomorrow. What should I do?” he asked.
“Pick her up,” I said, loving that my move had backfired on Kaufman.
“What? I don’t even know her. How will I do that?”
I described her again and pointed out her best selling point. “She’ll expect to have sex with you.”
Andy mulled that over for about one second. “Okay,” he said. “But I may have to call you for information. This might be tough to pull off.”
“You can do it.”
And he did. The next day he picked her up at the airport, and she stayed with him three days. Of course, he called me every hour or so to find out things I knew that he was supposed to know, but he managed to fake his way through it. What baffled both of us after she left was that she didn’t seem to know the difference between us, which was particularly odd given Kaufman was Jewish, I was Catholic, and only one of us was circumcised. I guess it’s true that love is blind.
Our scam at Harrah’s worked on several levels. When George Shapiro booked Clifton there, he never expected Tony to last two nights, let alone two weeks. That bastard Kaufman told me afterward (in spite of his pep talk) that he had figured I would survive no longer than ten minutes. I surprised them all. Actually, Andy felt Tony Clifton couldn’t last longer than ten minutes, given his propensity for crowd antagonism. I pointed out that although his Clifton begged rejection, mine gingerly courted acceptance. Whereas Andy’s Tony was a form of vicious catharsis for him, my Tony was just an act. And as an act I instinctively worked to keep most of the audience in their seats. (I say “most” as I could never forget that I was, after all, Tony Clifton.)
Prior to my debut at Harrah’s, Andy warned me, “Clifton can get to you. You have to fight with him sometimes, he’s pretty intense, hard to shake.” During the filming of Man on the Moon I passed that warning on to Jim Carrey. A consummate artist, Jim discovered the wisdom of my words: Tony, once you fell under his spell, was a very tough demon to exorcize. Jim also had a choice over how to play Clifton: my version or Andy’s. He chose mine because it was a more “accessible” direction for the way he wanted to portray Tony.
Much has been written on the Andy-as-Tony phenomenon, and some have suggested that Andy exhibited classic multiple personality disorder, or MPD. One expert felt Andy might have been demonstrating a rare case of “controlled” MPD in that, unlike most other sufferers of MPD, Andy could actually regulate his disorder, calling it up almost like a channeler.
One fact that seems to support the notion of MPD concerns a particular sexual preference over which Andy and Tony differed utterly: oral sex. According to experts, one cannot change hard-and-fast sexual proclivities, and though Andy was absolutely repulsed by oral sex, Tony Clifton lived for it. My friend psychologist Joe Troiani says that one cannot change such an orientation unless multiple personalities are involved.
But whoever Tony Clifton or Andy Kaufman or Bob Zmuda really were at that moment wasn’t as important as that we achieved our two goals, getting Tony more press and proving you could book him and he wouldn’t necessarily self-destruct. Now we had two Cliftons in Our arsenal, had Tony and worse Tony, so I went back to work on The Tony Clifton Story and Andy returned to Taxi, as we awaited the impending premier of Heart-beeps.
On the weekend that Heartbeeps debuted, we held our breath, knowing Tony’s movie future probably hung in the balance. Cut down to seventy-nine minutes, it was one of the shortest films Universal ever released. I was told by an eyewitness that when studio head Ned Tanen saw it in an early screening, he went ballistic. The picture opened and the word “bomb” was tied to it before the first reel unwound.
On the Monday after it opened, Universal conveyed a brief message to us that contained two statements: one, no way in hell would they ever make The Tony Clifton Story; and two, leave immediately. By comparison, the people on the Titanic had all day. When I fled to my Rambler Rebel I was stunned to see they had already stenciled my name out. I wanted to call David Steinberg and tell him I now understood. Suddenly the existential nature of the lyric “When you’re hot you’re hot, when you’re not you’re not” made a lot of sense to me.
That train wreck called Heartbeeps rolled over Andy as fingers began pointing in all directions. “Well, he kept us waiting with all that meditation” was one reason some of the perpetrators of the film claimed it bombed. Andy’s meditation had been contractually approved by the studio, but in the aftermath of a disaster people play fast and loose with the facts. The bottom line was Andy’s film career was dead, and with it our chances of making The Tony Clifton Story.
Adding salt to the wound of our loss of Tony’s cinematic chance was the fact that the writers of Taxi had become so enamored of Tony Clifton’s brazen demeanor, not only on their set but also in the trades, that they created a paler, more acceptable imitation called Vic Ferrari. When I heard of the Ferrari character I thought, Quit stealing our material — write your own. You might have bought Foreign Man’s soul, but not Tony Clifton’s. They had Latka, who was fe
eling inadequate about meeting girls, devise his own Mr. Hyde, the supercool Vic Ferrari, not unlike Jerry Lewis’s Buddy Love from The Nutty Professor. The swaggering Vic Ferrari was so popular the show ran with him for a number of episodes. Though Andy used none of the Clifton features or props, you could still see glimpses of Clifton — as a younger man — in Ferrari.
Then (probably because in Hollywood nothing fails like failure) ABC announced that they were passing on Andy’s basement comedy “Uncle Andy’s Funhouse.” It was another stake through the heart. Not long after, a similar project got mounted. It was called Pee-wee’s Playhouse, and instead of Uncle Andy hosting a kid’s show for adults, the host was Pee-wee Herman (aka Paul Reubens).
Despite Reubens being a fan of Andy’s he more or less commandeered Andy’s idea. I know that because Andy told me Reubens paid him a visit to break the news and ask for his blessing. What else could Andy do but be magnanimous about it? Legally, Andy couldn’t claim ownership to a Howdy Doody–type show, but it bothered him that someone else pulled off his dream project. Yet in a town like Hollywood, where ideas are openly stolen on a daily basis, it’s to Paul Reubens’s credit that he sought Andy’s permission. Andy considered Reubens a fellow artist and did nothing to stand in his way. That Pee-wee’s Playhouse went on to become a major success was in some small way a validation of Andy’s original concept. Though Andy never told anyone else, he once confided to me that it deeply bothered him that Reubens got the shot and we didn’t.
Two other instances where Andy felt his ideas had been commandeered by others both revolved around Tony Clifton. The first occurred when Andy befriended one of the SNL writers in hopes the writer could persuade Lorne Michaels to allow Tony Clifton on the show. One day the writer called and gave Andy good and bad news: Lorne liked the idea of a sleazy lounge-lizard character; unfortunately he didn’t see Andy in the role. Consequently, the recurring part went to Bill Murray. Always magnanimous, Andy gave the writer his blessing as Murray’s Nick, the lounge singer, went on to become a signature character for the actor.
Kaufman also felt that Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s creations, Jake and Elwood, the Blues Brothers, were influenced by the Clifton persona. One of the most powerful elements of the Blues Brothers’ mystique was that from the moment they entered a venue to the time they left, they never broke character.
At that time, no act other than Kaufman was doing anything even remotely similar.
Going back home to SNL took our minds off the debacles of late. It was fun being a fly on the wall of the set. One day, during a dress rehearsal, I noticed Eddie Murphy walking around in a preposterous Gumby outfit. Dick Ebersol, who had recently been brought back to run the show after Jean Doumanian’s short reign, was telling Murphy he wanted to cut the piece.
“Nobody remembers Gumby,” he insisted.
Andy and I were happening by and overheard. “Oh, no,” countered Andy. “Gumby’s great! You should leave him in.” And we walked away.
Ebersol must have listened, because a cigar-chomping Murphy as Gumby, railing, “I’m Gumby, damn it!” turned out to be one of Murphy’s (and the show’s) most popular characters.
During his tenth appearance on SNL, on January 30, 1982, Andy was slated to play Elvis in a sketch. Albert Goldman’s tell-all bio, Elvis, was just out and had stirred up great controversy in its depiction of the King, particularly the sexual peccadilloes he allegedly exhibited, such as his fondness for girls wrestling each other while clad only in white cotton panties. That revelation was a stunner for Andy, who burst with pride that he and his idol shared such a fetish (women wrestling, not the white cotton panties).
Using the Goldman book for inspiration, Andy and I concocted a scene that played on the wrestling allegation. After a concert, Elvis (Andy) repairs to his dressing room where his bodyguard Red West (me) brings in two young girls to meet Elvis. Elvis dismisses Red and then asks the two (clothed) girls to wrestle. Just as they take a wrestling stance, Elvis stops them and says, “Hold it! Take off your clothes first — but leave on them white cotton panties.”
The moment he uttered that line, Andy suddenly broke character, removed the Elvis wig, and turned to the camera. “I do not agree with this scene,” he said angrily, “and I do not agree with Albert Goldman’s book.” He then walked out.
A few weeks later, on February 17, 1982, Andy appeared on Late Night. Dave gave him a forum to challenge Albert Goldman to a wrestling match. If Goldman lost, as Andy swore he would, he would he required to take back all those terrible things he said about Elvis in his book.
Goldman never accepted the challenge. Did Andy mean what he said? Was he really offended by Goldman’s claims? Not at all. Andy wasn’t really the kind of person to be offended by much of anything and in fact secretly enjoyed the book.
By March of ’82 we were back in sweet home Chicago, playing the Park West again. We scheduled a few extra days in town just to hang out. Andy wanted me to take him to the locations of two of my greatest pranks. Like a little kid, he wanted to go to the exact locale and hear the stories all over again. As we drove down North Avenue, the scene of my first “psychodrama,” I thought about my days with the guerrilla theater company, forty budding actors committed to complete lunacy.
“One evening, all forty of us spread out to various bus stops along here, probably over a mile or so,” I began. “As the bus came along and picked us up, pretty soon everybody was on the same bus, all of us. So then at the appointed time, a fellow who was more or less the director of our little group of merry pranksters starts coughing. Pretty quick we all join in, all forty of us, hacking away.”
“Of course, there was nothing to cough about,” noted Andy.
“Nothing,” I concurred.
“And there were other people on the bus, right?” asked Andy.
“Oh yeah, yeah, the thing was packed. Us and probably fifteen, twenty other people. Anyway, one of us starts it with, ‘Hey, do you smell those gas fumes?’ and the rest of us jump in, ‘Oh, yeah, there’re gas fumes coming from somewhere,’ and immediately the others — the unsuspecting passengers — they’re coughing too.”
Andy grinned. “The power of suggestion …”
“Big time. So they’re all coughin’, and pretty soon so’s the driver, he’s coughin’ his head off. He pulls over, everybody’s eyes are watering. The driver radios in, ‘We need another bus, and send medics!’ That night we made the local news and the whole troupe died of laughter.”
While we drove Wound, I told him my famous Escaped Lions incident. That time the troupe went to the zoo and took up positions at specific locations. Suddenly all of us began screaming that we’d seen the lions get loose and they were after everyone. In no time our forty became four hundred, as everyone, even the hot-dog vendors — fearing the big cats would be drawn by their steamed tube steaks — fled for their lives. I told Andy that even after all those years, not one of the forty conspirators had spilled the beans.
“That’s amazing. That many people, for that long,” he said.
“Yeah, but it’s necessary to keep secrets. We’ve sure got a few we don’t want anybody to know, don’t we?” I offered.
He paused. “Yeah, we do.” After a moment he spoke again.
“I’ve got a secret, something only my family knows, maybe one or two other people.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” I asked, feeling a setup.
“I have a daughter.”
“Oh, Kaufman, what total bullshit!” I roared.
He was quiet for a moment. “No, Bob, it’s true. I do have a daughter.”
At that point in time, I’d known him going on ten years, and I could recognize the truth in his eyes. When you’re someone like Andy Kaufman, you need at least one person with whom you can once in a while drop all pretenses, all the masks, and just be yourself, be vulnerable. We had that sort of relationship, so I realized he was dead serious.
As I mentioned earlier, the young lady Andy impregnated while living in Gr
eat Neck decided to forgo an abortion and keep the child. Although Andy had offered to “do the right thing” and marry her, both her parents and Andy’s thought it prudent he not do so. When the child was born she was put up for adoption. Now, years later, as we spoke of her, this daughter whom he’d never seen was probably just about to enter her teens. Andy seemed slightly wistful as he talked of her, but soon we moved on to another subject, and he never again spoke of her.
Andy demonstrated an uncanny ability to obliterate any uncomfortable thoughts at will due to his TM training. As he had demonstrated on that tiny, wind-whipped airplane in the skies over Illinois, his years of meditation had given him the tools necessary to control his mind. Feeling such benefits of mind control were valuable, Andy not only had me promise to take a meditation course but also inserted that requisite into my contract and specified that I train for a minimum of one year, paid for by him.
I followed the TM methodology, accepting my mantra, a secret word each disciple is given to be used for the rest of his or her life. The word is repeated over and over during meditation, creating a sort of resonance in one’s psyche. It is somewhat like holding down one key on a computer so that the screen of the mind fills with that one letter or, in this case, word; ushering off all other thoughts and bringing harmony — because there isn’t room for anything else, just pure nothingness. That’s the gist of it.
I underwent the training, and one year to the day after I began, I quit. I felt the techniques were good and certainly valuable, and I occasionally use them to this day to still my thoughts and refocus, but I took issue with what I saw as the cultish aspects of that “movement.” But I respected Andy’s devotion to transcendental meditation and appreciated its role for him — it was truly his religion and a safe place to which he could retreat when the pressures of big-time showbiz, or life in general, tried to overwhelm him.
