Andy Kaufman

by Bob Zmuda

  The two security guards hired by Universal to keep lookie-loos away stood frozen in fear. They weren’t going to tangle with this band of menacing-looking gang members. In the middle of the pack of two-wheelers, a cycle with a sidecar attached held their leader. Sitting snugly inside, slugging down Jack Daniel’s and puffing on a cig, was Tony Clifton (Jim Carrey). He had hired the Hells Angels to do his bidding for the day. They would run roughshod over the whole production. Chuck Zito, president of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels, disembarked his Harley and commandeered Milos Forman’s director’s chair, resting his legs with kickass leather boots on Milos’s TV monitor. When Milos stepped out of his nearby Winnebago with his second-in-command, Michael Hausman, to see what the commotion was all about, both men’s faces turned white. Clifton stomped up to Milos and said, “You’ve been nixed. Me and my boys are taking over filming. You got anything to say, take it up with me, not them. Comprende? Compredevo? OK, boys, get to work!”

  Soon, a Hells Angel stood behind all key personnel on the set. No one said a word. Clifton took out his script and read his lines while the Hells Angels made their movie. Milos could do nothing. No one could. The two Universal security guards wandered off, wanting no part of this. Clifton read his lines perfectly, and so did the other cast members. When the Hells Angels are directing you, you do as you’re told. Oddly enough, they were quite professional.

  When lunchtime came, Clifton’s own catering truck showed up. “Prime rib for my men.” The cast and crew were too intimidated to sit at the portable lunch tables. All they could do was stand in the background as the Angels gorged themselves on the succulent beef, baked potatoes, carrots, and dessert, all washed down with an unending supply of cold beer. Cold beer and Hells Angels go hand in hand. Those guys could drink. By the time lunch break was over, they were all pretty much sloshed. Jim’s assistant, Linda Fields, began looking real good to them. She locked herself in Jim’s Winnebago before it was too late.

  Of course, Clifton himself had been slugging down the hard stuff—Jack Daniel’s. He then brought out red spray paint and gave one can to each of his gang, and said, “Follow me.” They followed him to the front of Chasen’s. Clifton shook his can of paint and began to deface the building, writing slogans like “Hells Angels Eat Free” and “Clifton’s Joint—Prime Rib Dinner $2.99.” Now remember, Chasen’s was a Hollywood landmark. Its clean white-and-green exterior always stood out as you drove by it off Beverly Boulevard. Clifton yelled, “Attack!” On command, all of the Angels started defacing the building in red paint. Traffic began to stop and people got out of their cars. A traffic cop on his motorcycle drove by, slowed down, thought about it for a second, and wisely decided to keep on driving. NOBODY was going to stop Tony and his boys. NOBODY DARED. Fifteen minutes later, when the cans ran out of red paint, Clifton admired his handiwork. The building looked like somebody had stabbed it a thousand times. Clifton declared, “That’s better. Looks more like home.”

  Afterward, as Tony and his gang walked back to the parking lot, Milos had a shit-eating smile on his face and his own card to play. He approached Clifton and said, “Tony, I want you to meet a fellow colleague. He’s a great admirer of yours … Elton John.” Sure enough, standing there was the real Elton John. Tony said, “Bullshit … he’s not Elton John,” playing as if it was a look-alike. Milos said, “No, it’s the real Elton John.” Elton stood there, totally intimidated by Clifton and the surrounding Hells Angels. Clifton said, “I’ll be the judge of that,” then quickly turned to Elton and said, “What was the single on the Captain Fantastic album?” Elton, surrounded by the muscular Angels in their leathers, was thrown and couldn’t remember. Clifton immediately jumped back in, “You see—it’s not him.” Milos insisted that it was. “OK, I’ll give him one last chance. Don’t go breaking my heart?” Elton timidly replied, “I won’t go breaking your heart.” Clifton laughed. “OK, that’s him.” Everybody around laughed.

  Now here’s what I think came down that day. Elton, who is an old friend of Milos’s, happened to be in town doing a concert. Milos told him how he was directing Carrey and how Carrey had totally immersed himself in the role of Clifton, and he should come down to the set and take a look. Milos, a power schmoozer, probably figured he’d kill two birds with one stone: first he’d impress Jim that he knew Elton, and then he’d impress Elton that he was directing Jim. I’m sure Jim knew in advance that Elton was coming to the set, but no way was Elton John going to upstage Tony Clifton, not on his own turf. So I feel Clifton needed some moral support—thus he hired the Hells Angels for the day. Lynne disagrees with my theory. She thinks Clifton just wanted to show Milos who was boss. Elton John was just a tasty hors d’oeuvre for Clifton to chew up and spit out.

  Months later, Milos told me that Elton had told him that Clifton was the “most intimidating person he ever met in his life.” To me, Tony and the Hells Angels defacing Chasen’s were just little things that Jim used to stay in character. Constantin Stanislavski would be proud. And Milos, if nothing else, is a real “method actor” kind of director. I’m told that when they were casting One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he would audition his actors by having them sit in with real psychos in a nearby mental institution. He would then bring in members of his staff to try to guess who were the real nutcases and who weren’t. When the staff would think that one of the cases was real when it wasn’t, Milos gave that actor the job. So Milos had no problem with Jim’s approach. Whatever it took to get the job done.

  ***

  One of the most bizarre practices that Andy Kaufman took part in was “intestinal flossing.” It’s an old Hindu cleansing technique employed by yogi masters. It entails slowly swallowing thirty feet of cheesecloth about two inches wide, soaked in warm water with lemon juice, until the end protrudes out of one’s rectum—and then one gently flosses by gripping both ends of the cloth. The idea is to clean out the entire gastrointestinal tract (approximately thirty feet long). Andy would do this to himself religiously twice a year.

  We shared this delicate information with Jim, who fortunately decided to pass on this particular Kaufman ritual. Clifton did, however, share the information with Elton John when he visited the set. A few days later, Sir Elton sent separate gifts to Jim, Tony, and Andy. Jim’s gift consisted of a crate of fine wines. Tony’s was a stack of porno magazines of fat women, along with a bottle of hand lotion. But the kicker was Andy’s gift: over 200 feet of cheesecloth!

  We laughed for days! Who knew that Elton John, besides being this gifted singer/songwriter, also had a wickedly great sense of humor?

  It wasn’t long before it all ended. The cameras stopped rolling. Our film had wrapped. Showbiz is a gypsy-like existence. Once the show is over, everyone packs up their wares and moves on to the next production, where you meet a whole new cast of characters, and the process begins all over again. For Jim, he would go on to his next film, Me, Myself & Irene. Lynne and I had been a recipe book for him, chock-full of Andy ingredients that Jim needed to prepare his “Kaufman stew.” Once the feast was over, the book was discarded, as it should be. Again Lynne and I lost our Andy. We’d see Jim a few more times, but things were never the same. Why should they be? We never knew this new entity called Jim Carrey. He had returned to being a multimillion-dollar major celebrity, just the type of person Andy had fought his entire career not to become.

  Jim over the last few years has become quite spiritual. He no longer drinks and does only healthful things for his body and mind. He is a guiding member of an organization that believes in responsibility in media. He will no longer appear in films with violence, so much so that he actually came out with a statement telling people not to go to see Kick-Ass 2, which he himself appeared in, telling the public it was too violent. (He shot the film before he saw the light.) He has to be applauded for his honesty in putting his money where his mouth is. The “films without violence” rule is going to severely cut down the number of scripts he receives. Besides becoming a great actor, he
is on the road to becoming a great man. I like to believe that perhaps Andy’s spirituality rubbed off on him.

  As for Lynne and me, we keep a candle lit in the window for Andy. Hers is a remembrance of what was, while mine is a beacon leading him back.

  Eighty days of psychodrama are pretty intense. Some actors like to work that way, others don’t. Paul Giamatti, who played me, doesn’t. A graduate of Yale University School of Drama, one of the finest in the nation, Paul just learns his lines and leaves everybody else alone. He recognizes, however, that some actors may need it and gives them their space to wig out.

  Another fine actor, Gerry Becker, who played Andy’s father, Stanley, would at times get into father/son role-playing with Andy (Jim). Obviously he did his homework and would yell at Andy in the dressing room, just like the real Stanley would do. Andy, not taking any shit from his dad, would yell back. The arguments would be quite heated. During one in particular, Stanley was yelling at Andy not to do the pile driver because he might get hurt, and Stanley didn’t want to see him get hurt because he loved him. This triggered quite a volatile exchange, with Andy screaming at the top of his lungs, “TOO LATE!” The moment became so real that the makeup girl, Sheryl Ptak, broke into tears, saying it reminded her of fights with her dad.

  I only wish more of that sort of thing could have been captured in Man on the Moon, not wasted in the dressing room. Andy’s two words—“TOO LATE!”—and the emotion behind it, told you everything you needed to know about that father/son relationship. Luckily, Lynne caught the moment for our doc.

  We get a unique look into Andy’s childhood through the recollection of his dad, as told to Gerry. Gerry is the consummate artist. Like Jim Carrey, he leaves no stone unturned to get to the essence of any character he’s playing. Therefore, when he was cast to play Stanley, who was still alive and kicking at the time, he looked forward to the opportunity to fly out to New York City and meet him.

  In fact, Gerry would tell me that he spent two weeks with Stanley. To this day, he says it was probably the worst two weeks of his life. He found Stanley to be a “rage-aholic,” totally “narcissistic,” with a “huge ego to match.” He admitted to “abusing” Andy as a young boy—not physically, never physically, but psychologically. Stanley admitted that he was disappointed that Andy was not very athletic as a youngster. Stanley dreamed that his first-born would be a great athlete. Instead, Andy would just stand out in left field daydreaming as the balls flew over his head. Stanley was bipolar, and when his mood swings would kick in, he would charge up to little Andy’s room and berate him horribly. Is it any wonder that Andy’s only escape from such an abusive parent was to transport himself to an imaginary world where he would talk to the wall of his bedroom, believing a camera was inside and he could enchant its countless friendly viewers with his talent? That this little boy’s only escape from such a tormenting dad was his own imagination is a testament to the endurance of the human spirit. Stanley would cry to Gerry and be apologetic for the hurt he’d leveled on his first-born one minute, and then begin yelling about him the next as if he were still alive.

  One day, Stanley convinced Gerry that they should drive out to the family home in Great Neck so Gerry could get “a feel of the family’s dwelling place.” Gerry pointed out that “other people live there now and might not be so receptive to us tramping around what was now their home.” Stanley replied, “Nonsense. I’m Andy Kaufman’s father. They’re going to be delighted to meet me.” When they arrived at the home, they knocked on the door and Stanley explained to the owner who he was and that Gerry was the actor that was going to portray him and they had come to walk around inside the home. The owner said, “I think you’re out of your fucking mind and get off my property.” Once back in the car, Stanley started raging about how insulted he was. “Doesn’t he know who I am?” Gerry chimed in, “The guy could give a shit. The world doesn’t revolve around you, Stanley.”

  This was also the attitude Stanley had about Hollywood, that they would need him to make the movie. Gerry, not one to be intimidated by Stanley, would tell him, “The movie is not about you. It’s about Andy. You need to be supportive and not get in the way.” Stanley wouldn’t hear any of it. The movie should be about him and Andy as a little boy, and the studio needed to know this. After another week of this nonsense, Gerry couldn’t take it any more and flew back to LA.

  Gerry said it would have been better if Stanley were an alcoholic or taking drugs, anything to help him overcome his deep rage. Unfortunately, his hatred of the film was passed on to his other children, Michael and Carol, who showed up on the set also with a chip on their shoulder. To them, everybody working on the film was suspect. Today they still view everyone as the enemy. The enemy who stole the limelight from Stanley and themselves.

  Unfortunately, such domestic abuse is multi-generational. Stanley’s father was abusive to him, so Stanley was abusive to Andy. Now Stanley’s children continue the trend by being abusive to those of us who try to keep Andy’s legacy alive. But they need to know we’re not little kids talking to the wall. We’re adults with careers in the entertainment industry, careers that helped shape Andy’s. It’s not just Andy’s work they’re censoring. As his writer for ten years, I can tell you a lot of it is mine also. All I can say to them is what Gerry said to Stanley: “The legend is not about you, it’s about Andy.”

  A funny example of Stanley’s out-of-control ego is when he met his match with another diva such as himself, Babs. Or to us mere mortals, Barbra Streisand. The occasion was the 1995 Emmy Awards. My Shapiro-West NBC special, A Comedy Salute to Andy Kaufman, was nominated for best TV special. As the executive producers, George Shapiro, Howard West, John Davies, and myself were invited guests. We decided to invite Stanley, knowing that such an occasion would be a thrill for him. One of the other specials nominated was HBO’s Barbra Streisand special.

  As I was settling into my seat at the Shrine Auditorium, Howard West tapped me on the shoulder and said, “We just lost.” I said, “What do you mean we just lost? The presentation hasn’t even begun.” Howard said, “Streisand just walked in.” I said, “So? The nominating committee keeps the winner secret until the envelopes are opened live on the air.” Howard said, “That’s all bullshit. I’m telling you, Babs wouldn’t be here unless she already knew she won. They want her here for the ratings.”

  Howard, George’s partner, was an old, savvy master of how the Hollywood game was played. He was right, and the room lit up when later in the evening, Streisand was announced the winner. Acting totally surprised, she majestically rose and walked to the dais to receive the golden man with wings, the coveted Emmy. Howard poked me in the ribs and said, “See? I told you so, kid!”

  After the Emmy celebration, they have what is called the Governors Ball. It’s a high-end dinner usually catered by Wolfgang Puck. The seating arrangement is such that you are grouped together with the other nominees in your particular category. Since ours was TV specials, it was no surprise that we found our table next to Streisand’s. In fact, the back of my chair faced the back of Babs’s.

  Stanley couldn’t believe our luck and at one point in the evening, whispered in my ear to ask if it would be acceptable for him to introduce himself to Streisand. I whispered back, “Yes, but wait for her stooges to leave the table,” as there were two PR people of hers seated on each side, flanking her from anyone who even thought of approaching the “living legend.” Stanley waited a good hour for the opportunity. In the interim, he really started tossing back the champagne. He was not a heavy drinker, and soon the bubbly got to his brain and he was pretty inebriated when Streisand’s guards finally left her, if only for a few minutes. During this window of vulnerability, Stanley moved in. Being Stanley, he sat down right next to her. She was appalled. Stanley, who was nervous and drunk, started slurring his words and babbling on about how he was Andy Kaufman’s dad and if his son was going to lose, at least it was to a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn. Streisand wasn’t having any of it
. I don’t even think she knew or cared who Andy Kaufman was. She just wanted this drunk gone and looked around desperately for her handlers. They arrived a short time later, but not before Stanley had the audacity to place his arm around the back of her chair. Her PR people quickly ushered him away, not too delicately. I couldn’t help but laugh as I heard the lyrics of one of her greatest hits run through my head …

  “PEOPLE … PEOPLE WHO NEED PEOPLE …

  ARE THE LUCKIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD …”

  … as she screamed at her henchmen, “Don’t ever leave me alone with PEOPLE!”

  ***

  Richard Belzer said it best: “Andy Kaufman was a provocateur.” Stanley was less French about it: “The kid’s a troublemaker.” I think a lot of Andy’s shtick grew out of his wanting a way to irritate his father. Could that be it? Could all this highfalutin’ talk of enigmatic anti-comedy performance art be a bunch of hyperbole? Did Father Know Best? “Troublemaker.” Had the Kaufmans not been such upscale Jews with the finances to send a child to a shrink, but instead had been a blue-collar goyim family where old man Stanley would have put that kid across his lap and taken his belt to him, I wouldn’t have to be sitting here some sixty years later trying to make sense of it all. “Spare the whip, spoil the child.” Abusive? Stanley may have been too tolerant of a dad. And then to make matters worse, Andy’s bad behavior brings him fame and fortune. Christ! They even make a major motion picture about him. To Stanley, the world must have gone mad, rewarding the troublemaker. It’s all one big misunderstanding. Streisand knows. She never heard of him. She’s got real talent. That’s why she got the Emmy and his “troublemaking” son did not.