Andy Kaufman (Actor)

"He's funny but he's dangerous." --"Taxi" co-star Carol Kane in 1982

"I had moments onstage where I felt like I wanted to just throw out the act and have a nervous breakdown onstage, just weird the audience out. And [Andy] was the king of that. If I could just have one or two of those moments that confuse people in my career, I'd really love it. It'd be great just to have everybody go, "Porquoi? Is it real or what?" --Jim Carrey in ESQUIRE, March 1998

"There's no way to describe what I do. It's just me." --Andy Kaufman

"Well, I'm not really a wrestler, though the last couple of years that I've been doing it in my concerts I've learned a lot about it by just doing it. I wanted to recapture the old days of the carnivals where (before television) wrestlers used to go from town to town and offer $500 to any man that could last in the ring with them for three minutes. So I figured if I could offer a prize, make it like a contest, it could be very exciting. And it turned out to be like one of the highlights, one of the most exciting parts of the concert. But I couldn't very well challenge men in the audience because I'd get beaten right away. I mean most men are bigger than me and stronger than me. So I fugured if I challenged women there are enough women who are almost as big, or as big as me and they would have a good chance to beat me." --Andy Kaufman

He was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series in 1979

Kaufman also told an interviewer that he was "doing things I did in my room as a child. It's just when I do them before an audience, they think it's funny."

Kaufman had a falling out with TM (Transcendental Meditation) officials over his wrestling women. They just didn't get the joke, that the sexism belonged to the obnoxious character he was playing, that it was just shtick. TM people today call it a temporary misunderstanding.

REM's "Man on the Moon" became the title for the Kaufman biopic written by Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander (of "Ed Wood" 1994 and "The People Vs Larry Flynt" 1996 fame).