by Bob Zmuda
Robin Williams was also present, a true supporter and fan of Andy’s work over the years. A gentleman and a major talent who had been unknown when first spotting Andy. He’s headed for major stardom, probably a lot bigger than Kaufman, and, like him, never copping any attitudes about it.
The lights went down and I told myself it would all be over in an hour. My legs were locking on me already. But instead of the film starting right off, it seemed that some sort of pre-show announcements would be made. I could just scream.
Out walked the official Ringmaster from the Olympic Auditorium and did a stand-up routine that I’m sure was well intentioned but was excruciatingly painful, considering that some of the most respected minds in comedy were present in the room. After ten minutes of this very unfunny banter, I could feel the audience turning uncomfortably. Budd Friedman let out with a few sly remarks under his breath. I couldn’t help adding a few back to him. I could hear Andy giggle behind me. It seemed like old times, only it wasn’t.
I looked over, saw Estelle and Harold Ramis, also shuffling back and forth in their seats. I shuddered at the thought of them thinking I had staged this. Then I shook my head in disgust at the thought that such a vain idea would cross my mind at such a moment.
Finally, the Ringmaster wound to a close. Everyone applauded vigorously that it was over. The lights went down and the film began.
“My Breakfast with Blassie” was a low, low budget video spoofing the highly successful film, “My Dinner with Andre.” Whereas “Dinner” took place at a posh restaurant with intellectual discussions between the two principals, “Breakfast” took place at a Sambo’s restaurant and the intellectual discussion was changed to idle ramblings between its two principals, Andy and the famed wrestler Freddie Blassie (the man credited with the phrase “pencil-neck geek”).
I myself appeared briefly at the end of the film and dreaded the thought that I would have to watch myself with this “Hollywood crowd” present. Especially since I did the whole thing on a lark one day after receiving a call from Kaufman telling me to meet him at a restaurant. When I arrived, I was greeted by a video crew and an assortment of what I thought to be students working on a project. At the time, I’m working on “D.C. Cab” over at Universal and consider myself pretty hot shit. In my mind, I’m thinking, “God, is this what it’s all come down to for Kaufman?” Murray and Williams and Martin doing majors, and Kaufman fucking around with some kids on video, because “Heartbeeps” died at the box office.
Andy encouraged me to join in the fun. In the film I can be seen pulling straws out of my nose and vomiting. The film was actually reviewed by Variety and singled out as the most “idiotic and sophomoric” piece of shit. If that wasn’t enough, the same review would be xeroxed and handed out to the audience on the way in. When it rains, it pours. But all of this took a back seat to my dying friend, who was seated behind me.
The first ten minutes of My Breakfast with Blassie was death itself, and I wished I were somewhere else. The blown-up video was washed out and fuzzy and the sound was even worse. I’m sure many in the crowd were wondering, What is this shit? I know I was. I despaired. This is what Andy’s career had come down to: nothing.
As my depression was about to get the best of me, an interesting thing happened — a few people laughed. Then a few more.It was infetctious, and suddenly the audience began to enjoy the video. The laughter had a therapeutic effect on me, as I’m sure it did on the few others who were going through the same nightmare. Kaufman and Blassie were brilliant at times, and even my own cockamamie appearance was met with laughter. For a few moments we were drawn into the film, watching a happy and healthy Andy improvising wonderfully with Fred Blassie.
The film was a tiny masterpiece. Shot in no time for next to nothing, it was ultimately as insightful as it was entertaining. As the film ended, I smiled to myself, deeply relieved as the audience burst into heartfelt applause. I had made it through the evening. Andy was asked to take a bow, which he did. It would be his last.
The next afternoon, I drove Lynne and Andy to LAX, where they were to board a plane to the Philippines. The mood was serious – for us — and none of us said much. We were certainly hopeful, but I was less sanguine about the notion that a faith healer was going to put right my dreadfully ill friend. I wheeled Andy, now relegated almost exclusively to a wheelchair, down the terminal hallway to the gate. Suddenly, out of nowhere sprang a paparazzo who immediately began flashing away a few feet from Andy. “You fucking parasites!” screamed Andy. “What kind of people are you?”
The photographer quickly fled, and Lynne and I were left stunned, more by Andy’s totally uncharacteristic swearing than by the sneak attack. Two weeks later the picture ran in the National Enquirer. It was payback for all those phony stories we foisted on them.
Now wary that the sharks were in the water, I decided to check Andy onto the plane myself and scan for any additional photographic sharpshooters. As we approached the portal into the plane, Andy pulled himself out of his wheelchair. Just as I was about to joke, “Andy, right foot first,” he crossed the threshold of the plane with his left foot. At that precise moment I knew Andy Kaufman was a dead man.
As soon as I had him situated, the flight attendant put a hand on my shoulder and gently asked me to leave. I looked at Andy, a wasting shell of his former vital self, and my heart wanted to pour out how I felt. I wanted to say things that he probably would have laughed at but understood. I wanted to hold him, to hug him hard for luck and for all our years together, but instead I lamely said good-bye and got off the plane. Through the window at the gate I watched as the crew secured the plane’s door and as the ground crew directed the aircraft away from the terminal. I waited until Andy’s jet passed by again, this time streaking down the runway into the sky. I felt an anger at myself and a complete emptiness. I knew I would never see my friend again.
Disbelief mixed with the knife-edge of reality as I walked blindly back to my vehicle. I climbed into my car and just sat there for an hour before I could move, alternately slamming my head against the steering wheel, while wracking sobs consumed me as I cursed the gods. Why didn’t I tell him I loved him? What kind of pitiful specimen of manhood was I? My misery knew no bounds as I beat myself up for missing the most important opportunity of my life. Together we had explored failure, and now I was finding mine, and it was bitterly complete.
The next morning I dragged myself over to Universal to continue my odyssey with Joel Schumacher. We had finished D. C. Cab and he had engaged me to develop a script for him, this time about a trio of teenage girls who drive to Ensenada, Mexico, with the intent of finding guys and parties. Tentatively entitled She Devils, it was light comedy — exactly the sort of thing I could not concentrate on given the terrible distress Andy was suffering. Joel was a workaholic and didn’t understand my waning enthusiasm for our work. He had no idea what had been developing with Andy and mistook my low ebb for a lackluster work ethic.
That misunderstanding was endemic among everyone who knew me and Andy, for our “state secret” was known only to our tiny inner circle, and the rampant rumors about Kaufman were naturally relegated to the “boy who cried wolf” category. But in two weeks, the National Enquirer photo and accompanying article (which was surprisingly accurate) would change all that, with our family-held confidence becoming fodder for the public as well as for everyone in the industry, including some who would feel they had been left out of the loop.
Over the next few days I lapsed into a severe depression. Finally, on the third or fourth day after Andy’s departure, my guilt and agony became unbearable, and I didn’t show for work, without so much as a phone call to say I was sick. My manager and agent tried to reach me, but I couldn’t have cared less. Schumacher messengered me a letter excoriating me for my “unprofessional” behavior and warning me he would not pay me until I delivered the script as promised. Perhaps this self-destruction was brought on by my guilt, the desire to suffer along with my dying friend.
Finally, bowing to pressure that included the death of my career, I threw together some utter shit and launched it over to Joel with the hope it would get him off my back. It didn’t. He knew it was crap and called me on it, so I demanded my money. He dug in and said, “No way.” I called the Writer’s Guild and demanded arbitration. According to the letter of the law, the Guild determined that he had to pay me. The reality was I didn’t deserve it, and since the community involved in the hiring of writers in Hollywood is very, very tight, my actions were nothing short of outright sedition. All I had fought to achieve, my career as a writer, could and would be snuffed out in a ten-minute flurry of phone calls over my actions, but I really didn’t give a shit. Unlike Prometheus, I had chained myself to the rock to allow the eagle to eat my liver.
My depression deepened, and within a few days Connie Bryant, my sweet and beautiful girlfriend, had also been pushed over the cliff. She found me impossible to take, given the months of angst over the initial news of Andy’s tailspin, coupled with the last few days of blackness, and we split up. I couldn’t blame her. No one in their right mind wanted to be around me — I made Mr. X look like a choirboy.
The morning after Connie left I awoke to an epiphany: What the hell am I doing here? When my best friend is dying in the Philippines? I quickly packed a bag, jumped in a cab, stopped at the bank, then had the driver take me to LAX. Racing down the main promenade, I hastily searched for the airline that would get me to the Philippines the quickest. I prayed I wasn’t too late.
I landed in Manila at 7:30 A.M. on April 7, and the stifling humidity nearly knocked me over. I checked into the Manila Hotel, the same one General Douglas MacArthur operated out of during his campaign to stave off the invading Japanese. The next morning I rented a car and headed out of the city onto the narrow dirt roads of the island of Luzon in search of Andy and Lynne. I knew they were in Baguio, a city in the low mountains more than 125 miles north of Manila.
About a half hour out of town I came upon a sight that will forever be etched into my mind: a man nailed — crucified— to a tree. I stopped and tried to help him down, but some of the locals approached and stopped me, saying it was Lent and this was his penance. Climbing back into my car, as jarring as the scene was I couldn’t help but think the guy should move to Hollywood if that’s what he wanted.
Farther down the road I came to yet another vision that was welcome but perplexing: at a dirt crossroads sat a McDonald’s. With nothing around for forty miles but shantytowns, it was truly surreal. I went inside, starving and seeking a taste of home. After receiving my order of a couple of burgers, fries, and a Coke, I noticed I had no ketchup. “May I have some ketchup?” I asked the young counter girl.
She eyed me suspiciously. “Is it for you?”
I wanted to crack off some smart-ass comeback, but I knew, despite the two Big Macs in my hands, that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. “Of course, who else would it be for?” As she walked off to fetch the ketchup I wondered why the hell she’d asked me that. I expected her to return with some packets, but instead, as if she were passing on the crown jewels, she handed me a small paper cup half filled with the tomato distillate. Outside, I realized why she’d acted that way. As I walked to the car a half dozen adults crowded around me, begging for my ketchup. I asked them why. “We make soup,” said one, swallowing his pride enough to explain to the American how it really was.
Feeling guilty about stuffing my face with two hamburgers and fries, I went back inside and asked for more ketchup. The girl refused, saying I could have it only if I bought another hamburger. I had her ring up a whole sackful and then had her load me up on ketchup. Back in the parking lot I gave all the burgers and ketchup to those grateful and hungry folks and drove away. I thought, Nothing like visiting a third-world country to hammer home how lucky you are Then again, I realized, maybe they were the lucky ones: after all, they weren’t on their way to help their best friend die.
The drive to Baguio was breathtaking, especially when I hit the mountains and began to ascend the dirt road and drive past lush jungles and deep valleys. Baguio is considered a vacation retreat for the wealthy of Manila when the heat and humidity drive them north into the cooler coastal mountains. I enjoyed the trip, reveling in the precarious, winding one-lane rut as I skirted vertiginous drop-offs. With no guardrails, one has to pay rapt attention to the track or find sky beneath the vehicle and forest hundreds of feet below. Every so often there was a turnout allowing slower vehicles to withdraw as the more aggressive moved past.
I slowly made my way up toward Baguio, carefully dodging the heavy foot traffic. I found it interesting that everyone seemed to be holding hands, even the men. My Western reaction was that they were gay, but that was just the custom and had nothing to do with sexuality. I yearned for another time, different circumstances, under which I could really enjoy that wonderful, gentle country.
I was told that I would know I was approaching Baguio when I encountered the Lion. The Lion is a magnificent sculpture, four stories high, reposing in a cleft of a mountain, much like Mount Rushmore. The Lion offers a grand salutation as you enter that magical and mystical city. As I drove down into Baguio, I figured that finding Jun Roxas’s clinic would not be difficult. I assumed that every local could probably point it out.
I knew that psychic surgery was a lot of baloney, but I also knew that some of the doctors back at Cedars-Sinai, where Andy had been receiving treatment, didn’t completely discount the possibilities. They acknowledged there were documented cases where someone “visualized” their tumor shrinking, and lo and behold, it did just that. But those instances were few and far between. Then again, Lynne, George, Andy’s family, and I didn’t see the harm in giving Andy hope. Perhaps with his mental resources and rich background in yoga, he could evict those life-poisoning cells from his body.
I found the Hyatt hotel where Lynne and Andy were supposed to be and checked in. It featured several fine restaurants, and its main aesthetic draw was a glass elevator that overlooked a picturesque courtyard. As I walked to my room I fantasized I was back on the road with Andy, on my way to the gig, with thoughts gelling in my head where we might later pick up the girls. After unpacking, I decided to venture out and try to find Andy and Lynne. As I descended the glass elevator I saw them coming into the court below. Lynne spotted me first, and her face lit up with a broad smile. We waved and she directed Andy’s attention to me. He seemed so much smaller and lifeless, considerably more so than when I’d seen him less than two weeks before. I was shocked but hid my emotions. I waved as he looked up, and his face came alive at the sight of me. As I stepped out of the elevator and hurried over to them he kept repeating, “I can’t believe you came here! I just can’t believe you came!”
His reaction told me I had done the right thing. Fuck Hollywood, fuck everything else — my friend needed me, and that was the only thing I cared about.
On Wednesday morning, April II, I drove Lynne and Andy to the session with Jun Roxas, the psychic surgeon. The clinic Roxas had established occupied what had been at various times a resort and a popular nightclub. Built into a mountain, it overlooked a vast valley, and its stunning setting gave one a sense that this might indeed be some sort of hallowed ground where medical science was regularly defied and miracles happened like clockwork.
As Andy was ushered inside, I tarried in the plaza to take in the view. After a few moments I struck up a conversation with the young woman who’d been assigned to drive or guide us around, should we need it. She had worked for Roxas for quite a while and seemed quite taken with him. “Oh, yes,” she cooed, “Mr. Roxas is a good friend of President Marcos. He’s even running for assemblyman of Baguio City.”
I smelled shit. Being a friend of that crook Marcos was strike one, and running for office was strike two. Just as I was about to ask some probing questions about Andy’s “surgeon,” a big yellow Mercedes with blacked-out windows pulled in.
“There’s Mr. Roxas!” said my new f
riend excitedly.
Roxas exited the car accompanied by several guards packing submachine guns. Sure, I thought, just like any other surgeon at Cedars-Sinai. I was informed that the firepower was necessitated by Roxas’s running for office under the Marcos banner. If that wasn’t Roxas’s third strike, then nothing was. I feared for Andy, what this disappointment might do to him psychologically. My gut instincts are pretty accurate, and I had a very bad feeling about “Doctor” Jun Roxas at that moment. I hoped I was completely wrong.
I sat on the balcony, letting the sun warm me, and chatted with our driver. Given the nature of our trip to the Philippines, the conversation came around to human existence and its meaning. Though neither of us plowed up any new ground, it was a pleasant diversion from my concerns about my friend. After we’d gotten to know each other a bit, she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “If you want to,” she said, “I can show you to certain places. Special places … that is if you get lonely.”
I smiled to myself, assuming she was referring to the local brothels. Could it be that our reputations had followed us all the way here? I politely declined, saying I wouldn’t be “needing” that during this trip. Then a man came out and informed me that Andy’s surgery session was about to begin. I went inside, found Andy and Lynne, and we were escorted down a long hall, past a chapel festooned with religious artifacts and reeking of incense. The corridor was decorated with hundreds of framed photos of gory surgery sessions. It was almost as if the presence of so much blood in the pictures was meant as proof of the authenticity of Roxas’s practice.
The main surgery chamber was separated from the visitors’ area by a glass partition that allowed videotaping of the sessions without being in the same room. Also present were a number of other surgical hopefuls, all stripping down to their underwear and placing their outer garments in plastic bags to shield them from the anticipated spray of gore. The group ran a cultural and ethnic gamut, and the expressions on their faces were a mixture of anxiety, desperation, and serenity. I wondered if they all truly believed this would work. Since Roxas’s clinic was like no doctor’s office any of them had ever visited, there was a general sense of confusion, and after disrobing, everyone just milled around waiting for something to happen.
