Andy Kaufman

by Bob Zmuda

  I didn’t want to believe it. No, it was all too horrible to comprehend. Therefore, it must not be true. Yet it crossed everyone’s mind who knew Andy, if even for a millisecond. But in the case of Lynne, those milliseconds added up to minutes and then hours, months, years, fueled by the knowledge of his being gay. Was this large-cell carcinoma, in fact, the AIDS virus misread at the time? After all, in ’84 not much was known of the disease. People were dying from it, but nobody had put two and two together yet. It wasn’t until a year after Kaufman’s death that Rock Hudson was diagnosed with AIDS, and only then did people first begin to take it seriously. Hudson was considered the first celebrity to die of AIDS. Could Kaufman have been the first instead? What were the signs? Could he have contracted it during his sexual experimentation with males in the Castro, as Lynne had suggested, or did he pick it up at the Mustang Ranch from a hooker? Before AIDS, brothels really didn’t enforce the “condom rule” as they legally do now. Would it somehow be easier on me if I knew Andy contracted it from a woman instead of a man? Would I think less of him if it was a male? Damn, why couldn’t he have just faked his fucking death and that be the end of it? Why couldn’t well enough be left alone? And yet, should Lynne and I hide from the truth no matter how horrible it could be? Why couldn’t Kaufman’s life be like that nice and tidy film Scott and Larry wrote? Why couldn’t all our lives be like a Hollywood movie with a beautiful score by R.E.M. and a lovable Paul Giamatti playing me and a $20 million movie star like Jim Carrey playing Andy? Why couldn’t everyone just leave well enough alone? Why couldn’t Kaufman live on in people’s minds as that funny Latka fellow from Taxi or that zany oddball who lip-synced to Mighty Mouse on SNL?

  The answer was, Because Andy was real. A great artist whose work influenced countless other artists and will for years to come. And it’s the job and responsibility of those who knew and loved him to bear witness to the truth and be honest about his life no matter how painful that truth may be. He belongs to history now, so let’s lay it down right.

  Toward the end, Lynne told me, the doctors gave him radiation that relieved the pressure of the tumors. Tumors caused by metastasis of lung cancer, which she believes may have been caused by AIDS. I, on the other hand, believe the tumors the doctors were looking at belonged to someone else’s X-rays. He wasn’t easy to be with at the end either. Nobody in that state is. He was pissed off he was dying this way. After all, he had so much more to do. He was just getting started. Only thirty-four years old. Was this some form of cosmic joke? At times, he’d break into mad laughter about it, and at other times, he’d openly weep. And yet somehow, Lynne stood by him. The woman should have been given a medal. The Kaufmans wouldn’t have even been there when he supposedly died if Lynne hadn’t called them. Andy didn’t want his family to know he had cancer or even be with him at the end. She said, “He was REALLY pissed at me when I called them in for what would be his final days. He wanted to die in peace.”

  ***

  “On June 5, 1984 [twenty days after Andy Kaufman’s reported death], a fifty-eight-year-old man went to his doctor’s office to learn the results of a biopsy of a purple spot on his neck. He was told that it was Kaposi’s sarcoma. The man’s name was Rock Hudson. One year later, as his doctor, Michael Gottlieb, watched the actor’s helicopter land atop UCLA Medical Center heliport, Gottlieb walked down to the hospital auditorium where countless reporters gathered. He stood up to a podium with a microphone. He knew he needed to be deliberate in every word he spoke. More than anything else, he did not want to sound embarrassed. That he knew was what had been the problem all along with this infernal epidemic. It was about sex, and it was about homosexuals. Taken all together, it had simply ‘embarrassed’ everyone, he knew, and tens of thousands of Americans would die because of it. It was time for people to stop being ‘embarrassed,’ Gottlieb decided, if our society was ever to beat this horrible enemy. In calm, firm tones, Gottlieb began reading from his prepared statement. ‘Mr. Hudson is being evaluated and treated for complications of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome—AIDS.’”

  That haunting passage is from a remarkable book, And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts, and I wonder if that same embarrassment lay at the core of Andy Kaufman’s mysterious disappearance. All this talk of faking his death or not may be nothing more than misdirection from the real illusion that had taken place.

  Why is it when Michelle Maccarone (owner of Maccarone Gallery in New York City, the art house that was mounting a retrospective of Andy’s work and recognizing him as an important artist) went to see Andy’s dad, Stanley, thinking he would be overjoyed with the news, instead heard him belligerently scoff, saying, “Why do a retrospective on him? He wasn’t an artist. He was a troublemaker.” His own dad. Did Stanley know what Lynne was implying? Did he know about Andy’s being gay? Had he himself considered AIDS too? Was war hero Stanley Kaufman himself too embarrassed by what his son might have been into? Months later, after Michelle met with him, Stanley Kaufman himself would die, taking to his own grave secrets still unspoken, secrets that Lynne and I could now reveal.

  ***

  Ring …

  A: Hello … cough … cough

  B: Andy, it’s Bob. Stop with the coughing already. I think it’s a dead giveaway.

  A: I don’t know. Everyone seems to believe it.

  B: Can you talk?

  A: Wait one second. I want to make sure Lynne can’t hear … [pause] … It’s OK. She’s in the other room with the TV on. What’s up?

  B: Andy, you can’t tell people you’re dying because you ate too much chocolate.

  A: Who told you that?

  B: Little Wendy.

  A. She did?

  B: Yes … and so did Cathy Utman.

  A: Well, I read this book called Sugar Blues. And it said too much chocolate can kill you. And Bob, you know nobody eats more chocolate than me. So I’m telling people that’s what’s killing me.

  B: Well, quit telling them that. It sounds ludicrous. Nobody’s going to believe you if you tell them that.

  A: But the book said!!

  B: Andy, I don’t care about the book. Do you want people to believe you’re dying?

  A: Yes.

  B: OK. Then don’t go telling people that chocolate-covered Cocoa Puffs did you in.

  A: What should I tell them?

  B: Don’t ask me. It’s your death. You figure it out.

  A: Maybe I’ll just stick with the cancer.

  B: Stick with the cancer. I like the cancer. So let me ask you, how long are you going to stay dead for?

  A: Good question. I told Lynne if I was going to be a little boy about it, I’d go in hiding for one or two years. But if I was going to be a man about it, it’d be twenty to thirty years.

  B: THIRTY YEARS!?! YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!

  A: Well, think about it. Everyone knows I’m always pulling pranks. They’d expect me to disappear for a year or two, maybe even three or four. But if I’m gone for say twenty to thirty years, they’ll really believe I died.

  B: That’s true. But your career will be over.

  A: It’s over now. Besides, did I tell you George was trying to get me on another sitcom? I’d rather be dead. If showbiz is no longer fun, I’d rather be doing something else anyway.

  B: Andy, do you know how long thirty years is? It’s a lifetime. What are you going to do over all that time?

  A: I don’t know, but it’ll certainly be fun starting from scratch.

  B: Christ, Andy, in thirty years people might not even remember who you are. So what’s the point?

  A: Well, that’s the risk I’ll have to take. If it looks like I’m being forgotten, I might come back earlier.

  B: This is crazy.

  A: I know. It’s the best idea I’ve ever had. There’s nothing else I can ever do to top it. How do I not go for it? Bob, I’ve thought about this for two to three years. Now there’s no turning back. I’m gonna die.

  B: Are you going to tell George about this?
<
br />   A: NO!!! No commission for thirty years. I don’t think he’d like that.

  B: So Lynne doesn’t know?

  A: Nope, she thinks I’m really sick but I’m not taking it seriously.

  B: Well, you better start acting like you’re taking it seriously or she’s not going to believe it if you don’t.

  A: She will. I have that figured out too. Believe me, it all works out in the long run.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Bombing Routine

  I wrote a Joel Schumacher film years ago called D.C. Cab with a terrific writer named Gary Rosen. In it, we used the line, “What makes you can also break you.” This line captures the predicament Andy was in. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. He had pushed the envelope as far as it could go. They were not going to let him explore any more. He was scaring people. Sure, he could have gotten on another sitcom easy enough. But he didn’t want to. The writing was on the wall. He knew what he had to do. He had to pull off the greatest illusion of his career, faking his death, only this time everyone would be watching. I’d be watching. This time they’d want to frisk him and make sure there wasn’t a trap door. They just didn’t trust him anymore no matter what he said. And when he made his move, they went, “We know how you did that.” Andy—you didn’t die—you faked it—we caught you. Like Cindy Williams said when she heard he was dead: She laughed and told her husband, “Don’t believe a word of it. He’s not dead. He’s pulling off one of his pranks.”

  How do I know that Andy will return? Because I know he is a man of his word. If he said thirty years, then thirty years it will be. So when will the exact date of his return be? When I say so. Kind of bold of me? Not really. You see, I’m the only one that Andy would allow to produce his shows. When I feel the time is right, I will pick a date, and that date will become the most anticipated showbiz event in our lifetime. Just think of it—finally the public will see for themselves how Andy looks nowadays and hear from his own lips what he’s been up to for the last thirty years. An extraordinary evening!

  ***

  Being dropped by SNL gave Andy a real situation that he could work material out of. He would not hide the fact that he was let go from SNL, which is how most performers would handle it—just downplay it. How embarrassing. Not Andy. Like I said before, he went for the embarrassment. He would mine it like gold. He would yell it from the rooftop: “Look, everybody—I’ve been fired from SNL. Taxi has been canceled. My wife has left me and took the kids. [He had no wife.] My career is over.” Once again, looking for that reality to sink his teeth into, the perfect masochistic role to play out. And if it was real, so much the better. He’d be a loser again—pathetic, a street wino. Nothing to live for. Just get sick and die. What FUN! What a brilliant way to walk away from it all. A perfect ending to a perfectly destroyed career. Talk about punk—Andy Kaufman is the godfather of punk.

  Oddly, as he played out this scenario, I had the feeling that there was something eerily familiar about it. I had seen this all played out before. But where? And then one day it hit me—it was Andy’s original Bombing Routine. But this time, instead of Foreign Man breaking down and crying onstage, he breaks down crying on national TV. It’s what Jeff Conaway said about Andy’s being fired from Taxi: “He wanted to be fired.” The same was true when Tony Clifton poured eggs over Dinah Shore’s head. He wanted the studio security guards to drag him off the lot. Then he gets all America crazy with the wrestling. George even warns him he’s “killing his career.” That makes him want to do it more. He then pushes Dick Ebersol to have him voted off SNL. He was doing everything in his power to bring it all crashing down around him. It’s the Bombing Routine revisited. It worked before and it will work again. He’d start to die (just like he did on stage) and then just when they were about ready to bring down the curtain, he’d pull it out of the crapper and win them back over. What was it the maharishi said when Andy asked him, “What’s the secret of comedy?” TIMING! And how about when I would give him a hard time about telling people like John Moffitt and Mimi that he was going to fake his death? He’d just shrug it off and say, “That’ll all work out in the long run.” THE LONG RUN. The long run meant THIRTY YEARS! That brilliant, metaphysical motherfucker had it figured out from day one. It was TIMING. He set up the premise and waited thirty years for the fucking punch line. Kaufman’s coming back! I’d stake my reputation on it.

  ***

  Nothing beats death like immortality. A chance to poke the old Grim Reaper in the eye and send him back to where he came from. If you’ve ever been in a near-fatal accident or know anyone who has, then you will know this to be true: the moment you know you are out of harm’s way, you breathe a deep sigh of relief and then laugh! Who says you can’t laugh at death?—Andy Kaufman is!

  So in the end, Andy decided to take on the Holy Grail of all topics—Death itself! The one thing everyone’s been told since they were little kids never to joke about—DEATH! And perhaps by his faking his death, he forces us to laugh about it. Poke that corpse to see if it’s a dead Andy or a wax Andy.

  But then of course there are those who won’t be laughing when he returns. Certainly the insurance companies that paid out the death benefits won’t. The criminal-justice system isn’t going to be rolling in the aisle. What about members of his own family? After all, it was Andy’s death that contributed greatly to Mrs. Kaufman’s own death. She was grief-stricken, something I warned him about time and time again.

  How about the media? Will they find it funny? What will Dick Ebersol think about this one? “It’s not funny.”

  And how about Lynne, the love of his life? All those years without him? Think of the family they could have had together. All the tears she shed. Was it really worth it?

  And how about me? All the wonderful shows we could have mounted in a span of thirty years. All the missed opportunities for TV and film. All the laughs we didn’t have.

  Some people are going to be mad at you, Andy. You’d better be prepared for that and have a well-thought-out statement to read. You have a lot of explaining to do.

  As for me, I’m going to laugh my ass off. After all, you and I have the same sick sense of humor. As for the others who don’t, remember what we always said: “If they can’t take a joke, fuck ‘em!” After all, it was never about them, anyway. It was about us. Just us. Andy, if you show up for any one person, show up for me. “If you make only one person happy,” make it me. Besides, if you don’t show, I will be humiliated beyond belief. I’d never be able to show my face in Hollywood again. That’s why I know you’ll be there. You don’t want to see that happen to your Dr. Zmudee.

  ***

  Before Andy took that leap into mortality, he had one more card to play. And if that panned out, he was prepared to call the whole “dying routine” off. It was film. Film is where Andy really belonged in the first place, for in film he could be as esoteric as he wanted to be. He watched all the masters—Truffaut, Fellini, Wertmuller, Kurosawa. He even was thinking of doing a remake of Miracle in Milan, a film by Vittorio De Sica, with Andy playing Toto, the magical Christ-like figure. No more of these silly sitcoms with laugh tracks. Film had the potential to save him, but it was tricky. One misstep and a film career could be over in a minute. The right script would have to be found, developed, fine-tuned, and then produced, directed, acted, and edited with great care.

  He and I felt we had found that vehicle in The Tony Clifton Story, written by Andy and myself and to be produced by George Shapiro and Howard West. Director John Landis, who was hot as all hell with such hits as Animal House and The Blues Brothers, persuaded Universal Studios executives Ned Tanen, Thom Mount, Sean Daniel, and a new recruit, Bruce Berman, to give Andy and me a “housekeeping deal” and develop the project. Soon all the nightmares of Andy’s television career began to fade away as he and I wrote something he believed in and loved. He was back in his sandbox having fun. The studio liked our first draft a lot and wanted some changes, which we were happy and eager to provid
e. Finally the script was ready to be handed to the head of the studio, Ned Tanen, for his comments. The Tony Clifton Story would put Andy back on top in a new medium and save him from the gallows or at least thirty years in exile. So we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.

  But then disaster struck. It was a film called Heartbeeps and had stinker written all over it. How do I know? Because I was told this by three or four Universal secretaries who had read the script and said, “Danger, Will Robinson!” It’s common knowledge that the secretarial pool of every major studio knows the hits and misses before everybody else. While sitting around screening phone calls for execs and doing their nails, they read every script the studio has in development. They shouted out a warning to us to stay as far away from this turkey as possible. What made matters worse, however, was that the studio was dangling the co-starring role to Andy, with a sizable payday. His leading lady would be Bernadette Peters. This was Kaufman’s big shot as a movie star. I pleaded with him not to do it. It was a character he knew nothing about and a script that lay there like a lox. What made matters worse, the director, Allan Arkush, was green as all hell. I begged Andy to pass on it, knowing that if it failed, no way would they do Clifton.

  Unfortunately, he accepted the role and the good-size payday that went along with it. Biggest mistake of his life. Both Bernadette and Andy were playing robots. They had major problems with the makeup from Day 1. The metallic robot-like prosthetic pieces on their faces restricted any facial expressions whatsoever. They could only act with their eyes. Besides that, application of the makeup took too long. Andy would arrive on the set by 7:00 a.m., sit in the makeup chair, and not be camera-ready till two or three in the afternoon. Ridiculous. And remember, Andy had written in his contract that he “had to have time to meditate.” This held up the production even longer and started to build up resentment with the studio and crew, in that Andy was causing them to fall behind. What’s more, according to George Shapiro, Allan Arkush, the kid director, didn’t want Andy or Bernadette to be funny, as he looked at the work as a “sensitive love story.” Everybody’s thinking, “Why have Kaufman and Peters in the first place if you don’t want them to be funny?” Soon the production soured. Andy hated it. Worse than Taxi.