About Andy Kaufman
The inspired lunacy of Andy Kaufman "pushed the envelope" of comedy way beyond the old line that had separated reality from imagination. A risk-taker par excellence, this 20th Century Dadaist made comedy dangerous again, championing a performance art that elicited nervous laughter from audiences never quite sure where the character ended and Andy began. Kaufman's outrageous antics included sleeping through his entire act on stage and reading from "The Great Gatsby" until every last audience member got up and left, but nothing provoked more spectator ire than his "bad-guy" wrestler, arguably the highest expression of his unique brand of absurdist theater. When a rare cancer ravaged him at the end of his tragically short life, and he was bald with chemotherapy tubes hanging off him, comics, assuming it was just another put-on from the legendary prankster, would come up and say, "Andy! You maniac!" There are also those who believe he did not die and is perhaps sharing a trailer with Jim Morrison and Elvis on the outskirts of Kalamazoo.
Raised in the affluent Long Island suburb of Great Neck, Kaufman went from performing jokes and magic tricks for family and friends to entertaining at children's parties by the age of nine. At age 13, he auditioned for Budd Friedman at Friedman's IMPROVisation Comedy Club in NYC and bombed, but after he attended Grahm Junior College (where he hosted "Uncle Andy's Fun House" on its closed-circuit television station), Friedman "discovered" him working at a Long Island rock club. Kaufman began doing stand-up for Friedman's NYC and Los Angeles clubs, and an introduction to Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke led to their manager George Shapiro representing him. He caught a huge break when NBC executive Dick Ebersol saw his nightclub act in Los Angeles and asked him to audition for what would become "Saturday Night Live". He made the first of his 14 appearances on "SNL" during its inaugural broadcast on October 11, 1975, lip-synching "The Theme from Mighty Mouse".
Kaufman's association with Van Dyke led to work as a regular cast member on "Van Dyke and Co" (NBC, 1976), and Andy's "unscheduled" appearances in the middle of Van Dyke's sketches became an instant favorite. He also unveiled his 'Foreign Man' to Elvis transformation to the surprise and delight of studio and TV audiences. After making his feature debut in the small role of psychotic assassin cop in "God Told Me To/Demon" (1976), he continued to receive exposure on "SNL", "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" "The Mike Douglas Show" and even "The Dating Game" before landing the role of the non-American auto mechanic Latka Gravas (an evolution of his 'Foreign Man' character) on the sitcom "Taxi" (ABC, 1978-82; NBC, 1982-83). He convinced executive producers James L Brooks and Ed Weinberger to hire his "protege" Tony Clifton (whom Kaufman impersonated) for two "Taxi" episodes, but Clifton's unprofessional behavior resulted in the Las Vegas lounge legend's firing. Kaufman always claimed that Clifton was a separate person, not a comic creation, and, allegedly, writing partner Bob Zmuda took over the character to maintain this illusion (including appearances after Kaufman's death).
Kaufman starred with Marty Feldman, Richard Pryor and Peter Boyle in Feldman's feature bomb "In God We Tru$t" (1980), playing televangelist Armageddon T Thunderbird, but it was a February 20, 1981 appearance as guest host for the ABC comedy show "Fridays" (an "SNL" clone) that really added to his reputation for unpredictability. Rehearsals through the week had given no indication of the insanity that would come when the show was live, but Kaufman absolutely refused to follow the script, creating general mayhem throughout the broadcast which peaked in a scuffle between Andy and several cast and crew members during the last sketch of the night. Kaufman insisted the incident was a terrible misunderstanding, but some of the "Fridays" regulars may have been in on "the gag" (including Michael Richards later to find fame as Kramer on "Seinfeld"). The next week's show aired a video-taped apology from the remorseful comic, and he returned as guest host of "Fridays" on September 18, 1981 (the first show of its second season). On his best behavior, he brought out his gospel singer fiancee to perform several Christian songs and talked to the audience about his newly found faith in Jesus Christ.
Clearly, Kaufman generated the most controversy in his career as the self-proclaimed undefeated World Inter-gender Wrestling Champion, announcing at his concerts, "Ladies and Gentleman, I am here to wrestle tonight. This is not a comedy routine, this is not a skit. Okay?? This is real!! I am hear to wrestle a woman." His "bad guy" wrestling misogynist stirred the audience into a frenzy of hatred against him, and he refused to drop the pose and let anybody in on the joke. Kaufman's act aroused the anger of wrestler Jerry Lawlor who took exception to the send-up of pro wrestling; the two eventually met in a match at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, TN on April 5, 1982, with Lawlor pile-driving the comic into the hospital with an injured cervical vertebrae. Three months later, Lawlor slapped Kaufman out of his chair on "Late Night with David Letterman" (NBC), prompting the comic to shout curses and toss coffee on Lawlor before running out of the studio. A subsequent match resulted in another pile-driving victory for Lawlor, but there are those who believe that the wrestler was in on it, if not from the beginning, then certainly somewhere along the line.
A comic genius ahead of his time, Kaufman possessed the courage to stay totally in character, regardless of the outcry elicited by his seemingly erratic behavior. In what some consider his ultimate performance, he reported night after night to Jerry's Famous Deli after the "Taxi" shoot wrapped and earned minimum wage for a six-hour shift bussing dirty dishes without calling attention to it (despite making $30,000 a week on "Taxi"). Years after his death, comics are completely in awe of his ability to be so "out there," and the rock band REM's 1992 salute to him, "Man on the Moon", helped ignite a Kaufman revival. In 1995, the response to NBC's "A Comedy Tribute to Andy Kaufman" led Universal to green-light the big-budget biopic "Man on the Moon" (lensed 1998), directed by Milos Foreman and starring Jim Carrey. In the way that comics use the phrase "you killed" to praise a breakthrough performance, Kaufman killed the conventional, the expected, and his defiant challenging of the established norms of the entertainer-audience relationship will be his abiding legacy.
