andy kaufman

Andy Lives: A Collection of Evidence for Argument's Sake

When people heard that Andy Kaufman died, they laughed. They laughed because they thought it was a joke. They laughed because they didn't believe it. They laughed because Andy wanted them to.

General Consensus was that Andy Kaufman was crazy. Everything people knew about him was that he was always pulling pranks. They laughed, or groaned, because Kaufman could be tasteless and crass and because he was not above pretending to be dead in order to show up later and point his finger and fool everyone once again. Some may have said, "good", when they heard he died and laughed because they hated him. Unlike some of his benign contemporaries, Kaufman challenged you to take a position. Take the case of his brawl on the live TV show 'Fridays'. Viewers were left standing up in their living rooms asking each other, "was that real?" America questioned his death the moment they heard of it. Long before the public knew anything about his desire to fake his death, they knew Andy Kaufman wasn't dead.

"What kind of a guy are you?"

Even in his youth, Andy was a trickster. Hiding from his mom until her nerves were frayed, he'd reappear hours later with mischievious glee. His life-changing neck injury at the age of five showed to him the hysterical, protective emotions he could elicit from his loved ones. Much later, via professional wrestling, he would mine these emotional territories intentionally. Young, dramatic children have been known to write their own last will and testament in a morose, self-indulgent mood. Andy did, the night before his thirteenth birthday. He read it aloud to his family, leaving his parents out of it as he was mad at them at the time. Days before his seventeenth birthday, Andy ran away from home, gone for over a week. It was the same day his father opened his own costume jewelry business. He tortured his parents with their own imagination of what could possibly have happened to him.. The dark personality of Andy Kaufman let his audience hang in the throes of doubt and question. Those who didn't understand his act remained there. On a Grahm college, closed-circuit television broadcast, he came on as a show's guest and committed suicide. The cinema-verite style of the self-assasination freaked out the viewers. The gun he pulled from his side was phony. On another occasion, opening for the Temptations early in his career, he faced a grimly obnoxious audience. His Foreign Man character barely made it to the wings, crying and sobbing, before the crowd heard fumbling from an offstage microphone and then heard the handgun-blast from a dejected newcomer's suicide. He left those rude audience members to live with the illusion for the rest of their lives.

The Elvisian Model - 1977

Andy Kaufman's interests were obsessive and cemented once they took hold. One of his earliest interests, rivaled only by that of Howdy Doody, was Elvis Presley. Fanatically collecting Elvis records and memorizing them for on-call playback, Kaufman was stunned when Presley passed away on August 16th, 1977. Andy had previously made contact with Elvis' costume designer, Bill Belew, to make Elvisian costumes for himself. The first time Andy saw Belew again after Presley had moved on, Andy asked Bill if he thought that Elvis had faked his death. The lore behind the King living on was already rockin'. Elvis sightings appeared in Kalamazoo, Michigan and more than one Andy Kaufman fan expressed the opinion that this sighting may have been Andy, after he had also disappeared into the Great Beyond. Kaufman's curious question to Belew reveals that the idea of faked death was already rolling around his head. Andy so loved Elvis that he couldn't bear to believe that he was really gone. Many others felt the same. There's something about a powerful personalities passing away that is hard to accept. Elvis is just one person in a long line of mega-beings whose names are connected with faked deaths. There's Jim Morrison, Tupac Shakur, Adolf Hitler, Jesus Christ and porn star Hyapatia Lee (!) just to name a few.

Also in 1977, NBC aired a television special called 'Psychic Phenomena: Exploring the Unknown'. Ratings were big, and Andy Kaufman was one of the captivated viewers. The sensationalistic, twisted bloody show remained in his memory banks for later usage.

Abel Mentor - 1980-81

January 2nd, 1980, an obituary appeared in the New York Times announcing that professional hoaxer, Alan Abel died from heart attack at the age of 50. A few days later he called a press conference to say that rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated. He had planted the obituary himself. Alan Abel was on television frequently in the 60s and 70s. One of Abel's big pranks was the formation of SINA, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals which suggested that horses get fitted for diapers and all publicly-viewable animals that "stand taller than four inches or are longer than six inches" be made clothing to cover their nakedness.

It was mid April of 1981 when Andy Kaufman's new pal Bob Pagani, host of the New York cable show, "The Slycraft Hour', introduced Andy to Alan Abel after a taping. They hit it off, being of like mind, and spent the next several hours in Kaufman's New York Hilton hotel room, talking. But that wasn't enough for Andy. That spring they became confidants, sharing stories and ideas and Andy wanted them to collaborate on something big. He asked Abel about how he tricked people into believing he was dead.

The Plan - 1982-83

Abel wasn't the only one Kaufman spoke to about faking his death. Several people were actually consulted over the possibility. Producers of the 'Saturday Night Live' knock-off, 'Fridays', Jack Burns and John Moffitt were taken aside by Andy and told that he was planning the biggest hoax of his career, of show biz history. Bob Zmuda says to this day that John Moffitt is convinced that Andy will one day return. Zmuda, of course, is another that Andy shared the feasibility of the idea with. Bob now says that he wanted nothing to do with the idea. Saturday Night Live producer Bob Tischler and two writers, Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield were let in on the concept, "...the hoax I'd really like to pull off is my death. But I'm afraid of doing it - because when I do these things, I do them for real, and so I wouldn't even be able to tell my parents.", Andy confided. Mimi Lambert was the name of the first woman Andy wrestled on 'Saturday Night Live'. After the match, they became close and Mimi was yet another individual Andy told of his goal. Andy said that he would fake cancer to fool the masses that he was dying. Lambert said it was a disgusting notion and bad karma. Was it bad karma? Did his desire to fake cancer bring on real cancer? Did he already know he was dying and intended on planting the myth beforehand? One more person he told of the plan to fake his death was his girlfriend, Lynne Margulies, portrayed by Courtney Love in the film, 'Man On The Moon'. Margulies claims that Andy talked about it all the time.

Jump back to March 5th, 1982. News hit the stands that 'SNL' star John Belushi had been found dead. Andy Kaufman's reaction? "He stole my bit!", he exclaimed to manager George Shapiro. June 10th of 1982, it was time for Andy Kaufman to write his Last Will and Testament again. Why? Did his father suggest it due to Andy's accumulating wealth? Kaufman wanted to do have it signed before a television audience. This idea was nixed by the 'Late Night with David Letterman' show, but producer Robert Morton witnessed and signed the will, along with Barry Sand and Sandra Farton. Barry Sand would later develop a connection with Alan Abel.

The Action - 1983-84

Andy Kaufman had a cough. It had been there for a while. It was definitely present when he hosted his last television show, 'The Top', an edgy music video program. It was also present when he was interviewed by Tom Cottle for 'Up Close'. You may even notice the cough back in 1981 when he did his 'Midnight Special' special. But there it was. Though he had already been to a doctor once about the cough, and even though he went through a battery of tests, including CAT scans when Jerry Lawler piledrived him into a wrestling mat in 1983, doctors didn't find anything unusual. Thanksgiving time, around the family dinner table the loved ones took notice and advised Andy that he really should see a doctor about that cough. He did in December and after the tests came back the doctor revealed that indeed there was a very rare form of cancer present - large cell carcinoma or undifferientiated cell carcinoma. They said he had about three months to live. Andy broke the news to those close to him, sparing his parents until later. His mother had recently suffered a stroke and Andy wanted to wait to give more bad news to his parents and siblings. There had been much bad news recently in Kaufman's career. His hit TV show 'Taxi' had been cancelled, he had been voted off 'Saturday Night Live' by a public's choice contest. He was dumped by the Transcendental Meditation community as they didn't think he was an appropriate ambassador for their group. The off-broadway play he was in, 'Teaneck Tanzi: the Venus Flytrap' opened and closed in one day. The future was not bright for Andy Kaufman. And now this.

The next few months went by quickly as Andy searched around for a cure. There was the psychic surgeon he had seen on television long ago, around the time Elvis died. The "surgeon" was Ramon "Jun" Labo, Jr., also known as "Roxas". Andy waited as the feature film shot on video, 'My Breakfast With Blassie' opened in New York and later opened in West Los Angeles. The next day, March 21st, 1984, Andy and a few close friends met at LAX to see Kaufman off to meet Labo in Baguio City, the Phillipines. At the airport, a photographer popped out of nowhere to snap photos of Andy in his wheelchair. Uncharacteristically, Kaufman assaulted the paparrazi with obscenities, screaming , "you fucking parasites!". In the context of this writing, it's worth noting that Andy and Bob would plant stories to the National Enquirer to get publicity for themselves. While in Baguio City, Andy would have his picture taken several more times, but these show him strangely smiling. The photographs of his 'operations' have a weird publicity-still vibe about them. The healing treatments went on for about four to five weeks and Andy and Lynne flew back to the U.S. They stopped in Colorado for accupressure and treatment with crystals before coming home to the Pacific Pallisades. It wasn't long before Kaufman was readmitted to Cedars-Sinai hospital in West L.A.

As Bob Zmuda trying to grasp the reality of the situation, his mind rejected it. In his book, Andy Kaufman Revealed, he writes, "During those days my mind reeled with weird possibilities and options to the seemingly inevitable conclusion to the story. Had Andy planned all this? Was it the perfect ending to his personal saga?" The faithful know the story by now. May 16th, 1984, Andy Kaufman was pronounced dead by the doctors at Cedars. His body was flown back east and on May 19th, a funeral was held at the Nassau Funeral Home in Great Neck, Long Island.

Life Goes On - 1985 and beyond

Andy Kaufman was a walking question mark, and remains one. Questions are at the root of his performances - "was that real?", "what is reality?", "why is he doing that?", etc. It seems natural that the questions continue. Andy Kaufman's dubious death gave birth to that final question mark, the one plunged deep into the collective chest of his fans, and the one that granted him eternal life - is he really dead or is he out there somewhere, waiting to return? The answer isn't clear, and Kaufman made sure it wouldn't be.

One frustrating detail in those pesky photographs from his days in the Phillipines is the hair on his chest. In Zmuda's book he notes that, "Andy covered his bet with a course of radiation and chemo." The peculiar thing is in the photos, Andy's head is bald, but his chest is covered in the thick body hair he always had. A doctor has commented that if he had chemotherapy, ALL of his hair would've fallen out, the hair on his head, and everywhere else. Did it fall out and the chest hair grow back quickly, but not his head of hair? Did he not have chemotherapy after all? Lynne Margulies has said that Andy had radiation therapy, but not chemo.

Among fans, the main clue that has been talked about is found in a script Andy and Bob wrote called The Tony Clifton Story. Towards the end of the story, the narrative viewpoint shifts as Andy informs us that Tony Clifton died during filming, and it is now he that must play the remaining scenes as Tony. The script reads that "Tony Clifton, age forty-seven, died of lung cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles". This is a stunning coincidence if it indeed is only that, but now add this ingredient. Andy Kaufman fanatic K..J. recently announced her discovery on the Celebrating Andy Kaufman Society's internet forum.. In Bill Zehme's Kaufman biography, Lost In the Funhouse, he reminds us that Andy would fake his age. Instead of the usual Hollywood white lie of making one's self sound younger, Kaufman said that he was born in 1937. He was actually born in 1949. If Andy had been born in 1937, he would have been forty-seven when he died in 1984, the same age that Tony Clifton was supposed to have been when died, as Andy himself scripted! Is this another coincidence? In his 'Midnight Special' special, Andy also told viewers that he was born in 1937. This was about a year after The Tony Clifton Story had been written. It's interesting that he maintained the same falsified year of his birth. Could he have had advanced knowledge of his cancer, and started planted the seeds of conspiracy much earlier than anyone could possibly imagine? There exists rare videotape footage of Andy and his grandma appearing on 'The Joe Franklin Show', a local New York City celebrity interview program. It was taped just before his 'Andy's Fun House Special' finally appeared on ABC, August of 1979. On the show, Joe Franklin tries to guess Andy's age. Franklin takes a fair stab at it, but Andy looks him directly in the eye and quite calmly replies, "nope, I'll be forty-three on January seventeenth." Without any thought, Andy gave the exact same age. Five years later, at the age of "forty-seven", he would be dead.

When he was dead, the funeral arrangements were traditional Jewish. As is with the tradition, no autopsy was done. But one glaring exception was made to the age old funerary customs - an exception that would be unthinkable and virtually unheard of. It was an open-casket ceremony. Were the Kaufmans aware that there would be doubt about his death? How did they convince the rabbis to break with this tradition? If the Kaufmans were trying to quell any such rumors, unfortunately it didn't work. There was a body in the casket. Even very close friends poked it to make sure he was dead! Could it have been possible to put a dummy into the casket? There had been plaster life masks made of Andy's face for 'Heartbeeps' and a special effects man had been hired prior to that to make a cast to sculpt the Tony Clifton facial appliances onto. Zmuda himself had delved into the realm of special effects to keep the Cliftonian goings-on secret. Is it possible Andy somehow paid off the right people to slip a mickey into the earth that day? A life mask doesn't look any different than a death mask.

One year after Andy had been laid to rest, Tony Clifton appeared at the Comedy Store. The rumors that Andy was going to return that night ran rampant. Bob Zmuda was doing his best to carry on Kaufman's torch.

The Eternal Flame of Fakery

Questions persist. Is Andy Kaufman's sudden death the cruel irony of an angry God? Cold coincidence? Or a carefully orchestrated ruse, hatched in secrecy over the course of five years? The only thing that seems certain is that Andy wanted people to be asking the questions long after he left this plane of existence. There are so many odd serendipitous events connected with his death, that you'd be crazy not to question its veracity. In the end, Kaufman remains in control, as he liked it. He still pulls the strings of the marionettes and we bob along.

If great art poses questions, Andy Kaufman's last hoax may be his greatest work of art. Like Marcel Duchamp, Andy left us with one final, super secret surprise parting gift -- a question of faked death that has become an entity unto itself. Sowing these ultimate question marks, Andy reaped legendary notoriety, thereby fending off death, indefinitely.

Maybe the Andy Kaufman death hoax can be viewed as a hoax of a hoax - a supreme, post-modern narrative switcheroo that points back to itself. The real hoax being that there is no hoax, or that it is a hoax of emptiness, like Buddhism's fertile void. Zmuda, who kept the secret for several years that he was the one playing Tony Clifton half the time, wraps up his book with this mind-bending suggestion. "Had Andy lived, what would he be doing? The answer is obvious: I truly believe he would have faked his death." Andy will forever be in control, and always have the last laugh, because as Tony Danza once said, "You just never knew with Andy!"

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