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Andy Kaufman

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Andy Kaufman

Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman (January 17, 1949 – May 16, 1984) was a New York-born American entertainer. Though many refer to him as a comedian, Kaufman described himself as a "song and dance man," saying "I never told a joke in my life." He was one of the most famous practitioners of anti-humor or dada absurdism. He was also a composer. He graduated in 1971 from the now-defunct Grahm Junior College where he studied television, and completed projects that influenced his later work. He practiced transcendental meditation.

Biography

Kaufman was born in New York City on January 17, 1949, the first son of Stanley and Janice Kaufman. He grew up in Great Neck, New York, and began performing at the age of 7. He attended Boston's Grahm Junior College for one year, and then began performing stand-up comedy at various small clubs along the east coast.

Early work

Kaufman first caught major attention with a character named "Foreign Man". Foreign Man, who claimed to be from Caspiar (a fictional island in the Caspian Sea), would appear on the stage of comedy clubs and perform a number of bad impersonations (Archie Bunker, Richard Nixon, etc). For example, he might say in a phony accent, "I would like to imitate Meester Carter, de President of de United States." He would then say in the same voice, "Hello, I am Meester Carter, de President of de United States. Thenk you veddy much." The audience would be torn between outrage at seeing such a bad act, and sympathy for the hapless entertainer, who would cry on stage once heckled enough. At that point, Foreign Man would launch into an Elvis Presley impersonation good enough that Elvis Presley himself would later describe it as his favorite. The audience would realize they had been tricked, which became a trademark of Kaufman's comedy.

Kaufman also made a name for himself on NBC's Saturday Night Live, starting in 1975, as a guest on the show. He would often do odd things, such as lip synch to the Mighty Mouse theme or perform his Foreign Man character.

Laurie Anderson worked alongside Andy Kaufman for a time in the 1970s, acting as a sort of straight woman in a number of his Manhattan and Coney Island performances. Possibly romantically linked with him as well (implied by the spoken word recording Ugly One With the Jewels in which she talks about him). One of these performances included getting on a ride that people stand in and get spun around. After everyone was strapped in Kaufman would start saying how he did not want to be on the ride in a panicked tone and eventually cry.

"Latka"

Kaufman later reprised the Foreign Man character, renamed Latka Gravas, for the Taxi sitcom in 1978. Kaufman hated sitcoms and was not thrilled with the idea of being on one. In order to allow Kaufman to demonstrate some comedic range, his character was given multiple personality disorder, which allowed Kaufman to display other characters. In one episode, Kaufman's character came down with a condition which made him act like Alex Reiger, the main character played by Judd Hirsch.

On a few occasions, audiences would show up to one of Kaufman's performances requesting to see Latka. Kaufman would announce that he was going to read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald to them. The audience would laugh at this, not realizing that Kaufman was serious and would read extensive passages of the book to them.

"Tony Clifton"

File:Tony clifton.jpg
Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman as Tony Clifton in Man on the Moon

Another well-known Kaufman character is Tony Clifton, an abusive lounge singer. Clifton began "opening" for Kaufman at comedy clubs and eventually even performed concerts on his own around the country. Sometimes it was Kaufman performing as Clifton, sometimes it was his brother Michael or his friend Bob Zmuda. For a brief time, it was unclear to some that Clifton was not a real person. News programs actually interviewed Clifton as Kaufman's opening act. The interviews would usually turn ugly whenever Kaufman's name came up, because Clifton would claim that Kaufman was using him to get rich.

Clifton was, at Kaufman's insistence, hired for a guest role on Taxi, but after throwing a tantrum on stage, had to be escorted off of the ABC studio's lot by security guards. Much to Kaufman's delight, this incident was reported in the local newspapers.


"Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion"

Kaufman grew up admiring professional wrestlers and the world that they perform in. For a brief time, Kaufman began wrestling women during his act and was the self-proclaimed "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World". He offered $1,000 reward to any woman who could pin him. Later, after a challenge from professional wrestler Jerry Lawler, Kaufman would step into the ring (in the Memphis, Tennessee wrestling circuit) with a man - Lawler himself. Lawler's ongoing feud included an apparent broken neck for Kaufman as a result of a piledriver by Lawler, and a famous on-air fight on the Late Night with David Letterman television show. Kaufman and Lawler's famous feud and wrestling matches were all later confirmed to be scripted (in wrestling parlance, a "work") and not real as many believed at the time. In reality, Kaufman was not injured while wrestling Lawler, and the two were actually friends. Remarkably, the truth about it being a work was kept secret for almost 15 years after Kaufman's death until the movie "Man On the Moon" revealed the truth in 1999. In his 2002 biography "It's Good to Be the King...Sometimes," Lawler detailed how they came up with the angle and kept it quiet but did relate that Kaufman's explosion on Letterman was the comedian's own idea.

The Fridays incident

In 1981, Kaufman made a couple of memorable appearances on Fridays, a variety show on ABC that was similar to SNL. Kaufman's first appearance on the show proved to be the most memorable one. During a sketch set in a restaurant, Kaufman broke character and refused to say his lines.

The other comedians were embarrassed by the position that Kaufman had put them in on a live television show. In response, Michael Richards walked off camera and returned with a set of cue cards and dumped them on the table in front of Kaufman. Andy responded by splashing Michael Richards with water. A stagehand stormed onto the stage, leading to a brawl on camera before the show finally cut away to commercial. The entire incident was a gag conceived by Andy Kaufman, but how many people, if any, were in on the joke has never been clear.

Regardless, Kaufman appeared the following week in a videotaped apology to the home viewers. Later that year, Kaufman returned to host Fridays. At one point in the show, he invited gospel singer Kathie Sullivan on stage to sing a few gospel songs with him and announced that the two were engaged to be married and talked to the audience about his newfound faith in Jesus. It was, of course, entirely a hoax.

Death

Kaufman died on May 16, 1984 at the age of 35 of lung cancer in Los Angeles, and was interred in the Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York (Long Island). He was diagnosed with the disease in December 1983, but kept the true nature of his health a secret, almost until the day he died. Over the years, many people doubted Kaufman's death, thinking that he staged it as the ultimate Andy Kaufman stunt. For one thing, friends and family said that Andy never smoked, didn't drink regularly, and was also a vegetarian. At the time, lung cancer was considered very rare for non-smokers to contract, and it is also rare in people under 50. Many people assume that his cancer was the result of his nightclub days, meaning that he spent a lot of time breathing in secondhand smoke from comedy club audiences for nearly fifteen years. For another, Kaufman himself even said that if he were to fake his death; he would return 20 years later, on May 16, 2004, a claim which has become an urban legend.

It was only after Kaufman's death that it was revealed he had a daughter, Maria, from a previous relationship. He was forced to give her up for adoption (she never knew her biological father; it was only after Kaufman died that she learned of this).

Claims of Resurfacing

Since the passing of this date, there have been unsubstantiated reports claiming that Kaufman is back from the dead and has a blog apparently chronicling his comeback. [1] However, these claims are highly questionable and are even self-contradictory in places (on the blog he contradicts the press release, now suspended, which he apparently wrote and paid for). Potentially dozens of fake Kaufmans were expected to appear around this time and this appears to be another example of urban legends inspiring real events.

Steve Rocco

The OC Weekly has claimed that Steve Rocco, a reclusive school board trustee on the Orange Unified School District, is Andy Kaufman.[citation needed]

Puzzlementary Productions

Some fans believe Andy's friends are currently operating an elaborate gag in honor of his notorious practical jokes he used to play. Puzzlementary Productions issued a statement against The OC Weekly (see above category) for claiming one of its owners, Steve Rocco, was Andy Kaufman. (http://www.ocweekly.com/news/the-rocco-files/its-puzzlementary/15119/)

Puzzlementary is also owned by Huey Williams and Nathan Richards - both names of which are characters that had been used by Kaufman while he was alive. Additionally, Rocco operated AndyKaufmanReturns.blogspot.com, which was allegedly shut down in 2004 due to a cease-and-desist issued by Andy's family - however, the press release was determined to be fake after it was revealed that it had been posted by Rocco himself, operating on the free press release website PRWeb.com. The press release mentioned the person who had elaborated the hoax was named Enrique - this is the pseudonym Steve Rocco uses on his website, AndyKaufmanLives.com. According to a Whois database search, Puzzlementary Productions is listed as the owner of the domain name.

There are many other clues and "in-jokes" on AndyKaufmanReturns.com, some of which are detailed here: http://www.ocweekly.com/news/the-rocco-files/its-puzzlementary/15119/

Trivia

  • Throughout his entire professional career, Kaufman kept his day job bussing tables at Jerry's Famous Deli.
  • Kaufman made ten appearances on David Letterman's morning and late-night shows, including one where he claimed to be homeless and begged the audience for money and one where he talked about his adopted children, who turned out to be three full grown African American men.
  • Kaufman also made a number of legendary appearances on NBC's Saturday Night Live, until he angered the audience with his female wrestling routine. The SNL audience voted to ban Kaufman from the show for good, though it was never made clear whether or not this was a gag.
  • In 1979, Kaufman performed in front of a Carnegie Hall audience, whom he then took out for milk and cookies, via 35 buses that were waiting outside. At the beginning of his Carnegie Hall performance, Kaufman invited his grandmother to watch the show from a chair he had placed at the side of the stage. At the end of the show, his grandmother stood up, took her mask off and revealed to the audience that she was actually comedian Robin Williams in disguise.
  • Andy Kaufman has posthumously appeared in Acclaim's "Legends Of Wrestling II" (2002) and "Showdown Legends Of Wrestling" (2004) video games.
  • Kaufman was a friend of Alan Spencer, best known as a creator of the cult hit TV series "Sledge Hammer!" Kaufman once invited Spencer over to his home and subjected him to a marathon of forty eight hours of The People's Court, a series that Kaufman religiously recorded.

Filmography

File:GodToldMeToKaufman.JPG
Andy Kaufman (right) in the film God Told Me To

Acting:

Writing:

Composing:

Producing:

Playing Himself:

Notable TV Guest Appearances:

In Wrestling

Managers


See also

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