by Bob Zmuda
“I think the promoter’s in on it. He’s gotta be,” said a worried Andy.
“Probably is. You’ve made a lot of enemies here,” I said, bringing a snicker from one of the set assistants, now embarrassed she’d been caught eavesdropping.
“I think Jerry Lawler is going to use me as an example to prove pro wrestling is real. He’s gonna kill me.”
“I think you’re right, Kaufman.”
“That’s it, I’ve gotta cancel this thing. It’s my only choice.”
Andy went back to the hotel, where he and George got the promoter on the phone. “I want out,” said Andy.
“Well, if that’s the case,” said the promoter, “then you’ll owe me thirty grand. Just send over a check before you leave town.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Andy. “What thirty grand?”
“Actually,” interjected George, “he’s right, Andy. It’s in the contract you signed. Thirty grand if you’re a no-show.”
Andy’s eyes were circles. “We’ll get back to you,” he said to the promoter and hung up. “I gotta pay them that much if I walk?”
“Yeah,” sighed George, “it’s in the deal. Sorry.”
“What am I contracted to do? I mean, if he beats me in the first round I’m okay, right?”
I said, “I don’t think you want to risk that.”
“No, you’re right,” said Andy, “but isn’t there some time limit or something?”
George nodded. “Yeah, two minutes. I believe that’s what the contract called for. To make the match legal.”
“Okay, okay, I can do that … I can stay in the ring two minutes.”
“Be careful,” I added, knowing Andy was scared of Lawler.
“I think that goes without saying,” said George.
“He won’t lay a hand on me,” decided Andy. “I’ll just keep running away from him until two minutes are up.”
That night we arrived at the Mid-South Coliseum completely unprepared for what awaited us. A thick, angry mob pressed against a police barricade as we climbed warily from the limo. Fifteen Memphis cops in full riot gear formed a phalanx around us and pressed through the spitting, hissing crowd. A few of the more vicious taunted, “Kill the Jew!” Suddenly it wasn’t just Andy in danger, it was me, George, and Andy’s girlfriend, all vested partners in some impending mayhem. Despite the anti-Semitic cries, I couldn’t help but feel like the early Christians as they proceeded into the Coliseum to face the lions.
We entered the arena and marched to the ring, the atmosphere within even more hostile than outside. Andy turned to me and said aloud, not caring if anyone heard, “I’m not doing it. I’ll give them the thirty grand.”
I added, “You’re right, let’s get the fuck outta here.”
But it was too late. As the announcer took to center ring and began the rundown, Andy warmed up and looked across at Mr. Lawler. The pro wrestler returned one of the most menacing blood-into-ice-water stares I’ve ever seen. Once introductions were done (delayed slightly because of the intense booing), Andy Kaufman, the smart guy from Hollywood, stepped toe-to-toe with Jerry “The King” Lawler, the angry “hillbilly” from Memphis. The entire assemblage could see the fear in Kaufman’s eyes, and they reveled in it.
The referee (a real one this time, not yours truly) laid out the rules, and the grapplers went back to their corners. Then the bell rang and the match was on. Lawler came out of his corner, and Andy did so briefly hut then began running away every time Lawler came near. All Andy had to do was last two minutes and he’d be home free. Every time Lawler zigged, Andy zagged, sometimes even leaping outside the ropes when his stalker came near. He carefully avoided destruction although the crowd’s angry boos and yells escalated in fervor. But Andy didn’t care because he was going to live.
As Andy got closer to his two-minute safe zone, managing to thwart the grasp of Jerry Lawler time and again, he seemed to relax slightly, as if the worst was over. That’s when Lawler did a peculiar thing. Stopping in the center of the ring, Lawler just bent over and clasped his hands behind his back. “Go ahead, Kaufman, put me in a headlock,” he offered. “Go ahead, I won’t stop you.”
Andy had always prided himself on his headlock, and therein lay his downfall. The crowd screamed its approval as Andy gingerly approached the bowed Lawler. It seemed Lawler had forgotten his revenge and sought to engage in theatrics. Taken in by Lawler’s apparent supplication and lulled into a sense of security that perhaps Lawler didn’t really mean him harm, Andy positioned his arms around Lawler’s thick neck. I screamed from the side of the ring for him not to go near the beast.
What happened next occurred with dizzying speed, but it was the moment the crowd was hoping for. Lawler quickly unlocked his hands, reversed on Andy, lifted him high, and, in what wrestlers call a suplex, slammed him hard onto the mat. A stunned Andy, the wind knocked out of him, writhed slowly on the canvas, trying to regain his bearings. The crowd screamed in glee as the invading Hebrew from Hollywood got his comeuppance.
George and I were in shock and moved to stop the match, but we weren’t fast enough. Before we could do anything, Lawler gathered up a dazed Andy and, in an impressive grasp, lifted him straight up, with Andy’s toes reaching for the ceiling. For a split second everyone in the house held their breath, and then, like the final plunge of a doomed airplane, Andy’s head, now nestled between Lawler’s meaty thighs, was driven into the mat with the force of a jackhammer. Game, set, and match. Lawler’s application of wrestling’s most dangerous move, the infamous “pile driver,” resulted in Andy being knocked completely unconscious. Lawler was immediately disqualified for that illegality but pressed on.
Despite the ref’s attempt to stop the fight, bad turned to worse as Lawler repeated the death blow, hefting the limp Andy once again and crushing his head in yet another pile driver. The bloodthirsty townsfolk cheered madly over their joy that if the arrogant Kaufman next addressed them, contritely admitting he had been wrong, it would be from the confines of a wheelchair. Or maybe they’d been really lucky and Jerry had done what they’d asked of him and actually killed the Jew.
Andy’s body was lifeless as Lawler stormed over him, bringing other wrestlers from outside the ropes into the ring to prevent further crimes against the fractured Kaufman. About ten minutes later, an ambulance backed up to the ring, and two paramedics assembled a two-piece gurney (a special device used in transporting critical back injuries) and spirited Andy to the vehicle. As he was settled in, George and I and Andy’s girlfriend huddled at the door to the ambulance, half concerned over Andy, half seeking refuge from the rabid crowd. George and the girlfriend were waved in, but the paramedic held up a hand to me. “Sorry, only enough room for two family members. You’ll have to get another ride to the hospital.” Another ride to the hospital? As I sized up the mass of hateful Memphisites, I thought, Yeah, probably the ambulance that takes me to the hospital.
Staring at the exit thirty yards away and the ten thousand maniacs in my path, and with nary a cop in sight, I pushed off on what would be the hardest, loneliest walk of my life. People were pushing and jostling me, and debris pelted me. It was only a matter of time before someone just hauled off and knocked me out or the crowd closed in and ate me like wild dogs. “He’s Kaufman’s friend!” someone screamed. “Get him!”
What I did next was completely instinctual. Using every ounce of my acting training, I put on the toughest fuck-you scowl I could muster and notched up my gait to John Wayne proportions. A few yards later, I found the biggest, meanest looking guy I could and slapped him hard as I passed. My gesture worked, and like Moses with his staff, I parted the Red Sea of inflamed trailer residents, and the toughest motherfucker they’d ever seen, including Jerry “The King” Lawler, passed through their sullen ranks without further incident. Of course, once that metal outside door fell shut with that reassuring thwump, I dropped all of my puffer-fish pretense and ran like hell, quaking with blinding fear.
At the hos
pital, Andy was being ministered to in a private room, and we released to the waiting press all we knew: he was drifting in and out of consciousness, and though he had received a CAT scan indicating three of his vertebrae in the lumbar region had been badly compressed, his doctors were almost completely certain he would be able to walk again. As some news outlets were reporting that Andy would be paralyzed for life, George decided to phone the Kaufman family with the doctor’s more hopeful prognosis. Though the doctors gave Andy a week of recuperation before he could be released, the media reported Andy left one day short of that week, clad in a bulky neck brace.
About a month after the match, on May 15, 1982, Andy appeared on Saturday Night Live, humbled, his damaged neck buttressed by a sizable brace, to thank those who had sent cards wishing him well. Chastened by his near-death experience, Andy promised he had seen the light and was through with wrestling. Meanwhile, an angry Stanley Kaufman was in the preliminary stages of filing a lawsuit against Lawler and the promoter. A few months later, on July 28, 1982, Andy, still in the neck support, gathered the courage to face his nemesis for the first time since his near-crippling injury. Jerry “The King” Lawler and Andy were scheduled to “bury the hatchet” as Dave Letterman refereed from behind his desk.
Using the Late Night forum to extract an apology from Lawler for traumatizing him, Andy became heated immediately, still angry that Lawler had betrayed him and then seriously hurt him and had completely discarded the code of ethics among wrestling pros that you never intentionally do harm to your opponent. As Andy and Lawler traded remarks, Dave sat helplessly by, unable to calm Andy and fearing Lawler might get mad. Just as they were to go to a spot break, Andy said something, and the muscular Lawler snapped. Standing up, Lawler towered over the taunting Kaufman and suddenly, like a striking cobra, slapped Andy hard across the left check, knocking him completely out of his chair. As chaos erupted they cut to a spot. Andy picked him self up and fled the set.
Coming back from the commercial, Jerry and Dave continued their interview. Suddenly a mad-as-a-wet-hen Kaufman flew out from the wings, slamming Dave’s desk and screaming bleeped-out obscenities at Jerry Lawler. Andy never swore (as Andy, not Tony Clifton). His eyes bugged with rage. Andy, standing to Dave’s left, seeing his furious words elicit little reaction from Lawler, grabbed a cup of hot coffee and flung it on Lawler. That did it, and Lawler leaped up as Andy raced backstage and out the back door.
Letterman, who had given up control of his show to the two combatants, made one of his trademark mocking observations: “You can say some of those words on TV, but what you can’t do is throw coffee!” The next day, Andy Kaufman’s antics were the talk around every coffee urn and water cooler in America. Within a week, Andy’s publicist had accumulated over eight hundred clippings from news sources coast to coast. It had nearly cost him his physical mobility, if not his very life, but once again Andy had people buzzing.
Now, for the first time anywhere, the truth …
The entire series of incidents was staged. It pains me to say so, but as the movie is going to let the cat out of the bag I feel compelled to fess up. The depth of the conspiracy was what was most interesting: no one but Andy and I and Jerry Lawler really knew. And speaking of Mr. Lawler … is he the brute I’ve portrayed on the past few pages? Not in the least. Jerry is quite the gentleman and a helluva good sport. As a matter of fact, the night before the match in Memphis he secretly hosted me and Andy at his home as we planned our hijinks.
Jerry was very, very careful not to hurt Andy, and it was Andy who insisted Jerry take more chances to heighten the reality. Jerry’s pile driver was perfectly executed both times, leaving Andy completely unharmed. That night I was actually the only one in danger, as I made my escape from the Mid-South Coliseum. At the hospital, Andy was taken into a private room where the examining doctor pronounced him unscathed.
“Do I need a net I brace?” asked Andy.
“No. You’re perfectly fine,” replied the doctor.
“Can I wear one anyway?”
The doctor was puzzled. “It would serve you no purpose.”
“That’s okay. Give me the biggest one you’ve got.”
Andy quietly slipped out of the hospital, and we released the information that he was laid up for nearly a week. On the Letter-man show, Andy instructed Jerry beforehand, “Go for it and slap me hard.”
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you, Andy,” said Jerry.
“No, it’s okay. We gotta sell it. Go ahead and whack me good.”
Jerry was concerned he might really knock Kaufman for a loop but played along brilliantly. Andy had told Jerry he had to strike him before the commercial break — that’s why you see Jerry standing, anticipating having to slap Andy. When they came back from the spot, Andy was really swearing, the bleep-outs in the tape being authentic. I told him that to make it all believable, particularly to those who knew Andy, he had to swear for real, something he never, ever did unless, as I explained before, he was Clifton. Andy’s barometer of reality was his family — if he could get them to buy something, he knew everyone else would fall into place. Andy eventually had to take Stanley aside and tell him the truth before Stanley’s suit against our friend Jerry Lawler got out of hand.
Andy and Jerry continued for some time with their comedy in the ring, elevating their “feud” to Homeric proportions with various matches and rematches and tag-team combinations and even the red herring of a supposed “teaming” of Andy and Jerry. The beauty of it was that when Andy “betrayed” his new partner, Jerry, against another wrestler, Jimmy Hart, it was still part of their big deception. Oh, and did Dave know that that “scalding” coffee Andy hurled at Jerry was only lukewarm? You’ll have to ask him.
Did Andy look at such stunts in terms of a career strategy, or did he work intuitively? And how did I feel, working outside the box on such “projects” that amounted to mass hoaxes? Were we worried that people would find out and that our credibility would be destroyed? No. First, what credibility? We were performance magicians, devising sleight-of-hand tricks that went on for weeks, even months. We were forced by circumstance to pull the wool over the eyes of everyone, including our friends, families, business associates, and colleagues.
Was it uncomfortable? Sure, especially those times we stared a close friend in the face and lied our heads off, but it was all done for the cause. For better or for worse, this was Andy Kaufman’s career and, by association, mine too. As his best friend, writer, and producer I was as involved as he in pulling off the stunts. In fact, it was often I who had to prevaricate the most, since Andy could hide behind the facade of “stardom” or retreat to meditation while I carefully explained to others what was happening. Or seemed to be happening. As they say, it was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.
After the months of madness and energy expenditure involving the wrestling flimflam, things quieted down a bit. In August of ‘82 Andy called and explained he was doing a small project and needed some help. He asked me to meet him at Sambo’s restaurant the next morning. When I arrived I found he was shooting a sort of impromptu student movie. While real patrons moved in the background, Andy and his costar, pro wrestler Freddie Blassie, sat across the table from each other and simply shot the shit. Designed to parody My Dinner with André starring André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, Andy’s film dispensed with such pretense and offered a glimpse into the mind of the man who invented the caustic appellation “pencil-neck geek.”
Though loosely directed by the notorious Johnny Legend, My Breakfast with Blassie was more of a cinema verité homage to wrasslin’ and pigs in a blanket than it was a gripping drama. Made for about a buck ninety-eight, it’s quite funny and a must-see for anyone interested in Kaufman trivia. I had the most demanding role of all: cast as a bystander, I happened by and vomited on cue. Of course, as did Marlon, I had Sacheen Little-feather pick up my Oscar.
The most significant item about My Breakfast with Blassie comes in an unplanned moment when Andy meets a
cute girl and tries to pick her up. That girl’s name was Lynne Margulies, and she is Johnny Legend’s sister. Portrayed in Man on the Moon by Academy Award–nominated actress Courtney Love, Lynne is a phenomenal Renaissance woman. Of all Andy’s girlfriends, she is the only one who really ever knew how to handle him.
At first I didn’t believe him when he called and told me he was moving in with Lynne. The great Casanova settling down? It didn’t sound possible, but then Andy explained he’d devised a way to have his cake and eat it too. They would live together, enjoying mad, passionate love, but the rule would be they could both retain their freedom to have sex with others. Andy wasn’t sexist and the woman he was with had to have the same rights he had. Lynne was as open-minded as Andy in that regard and readily agreed. It was not unusual for Andy to call Lynne from the telephone booth at the Mustang, and it didn’t bother her in the least. Andy couldn’t stand any control over him, culturally, creatively, or sexually. As Marilu Henner, his Taxi costar, put it in her autobiography, Andy was “an absolute original, a thoroughly fascinating, unfathomable, complex, uncompromised, tortured artist who marched through his short, strange life to a very different drummer.”
Lynne was very feminine and also smart enough to know not to engage Andy in verbal confrontation. Her mature, open-minded demeanor set her apart from the scrambled-brain bimbos he’d been dicking for years. Though she had done a full nude layout and centerfold for Gallery magazine a few years before, that only bespoke her wild, rebellious side. She was a find, and even the great Andy Kaufman knew it. Andy would carry the magazine around with him and show it to all the guys. He’d finally found a woman who was a highly intelligent artist in her own right, and he knew he’d met his match. She was the love of his life, though his ego would never allow him to admit it. After all, he was Andy Kaufman, and that demanded he be the center of the universe.
Meanwhile, Tony Clifton got another job. Though Andy and George had lobbied to get Clifton on SNL, management of that show was only lukewarm to the idea. However, the producers of The Fantastic Miss Piggy Show welcomed Tony Clifton with open arms. On August 14, 1982, we flew to Toronto and met the legendary Jim Henson. He and Andy hit it off from the start. After all, they were both very much in tune with that child most refer to as “inner.” In a way, Henson understood Tony almost better than we did. To him, Tony Clifton was just another big puppet, as grouchy and condescending as some of his own lovable inventions, such as Oscar the Grouch and the Cookie Monster. Though Henson had no problem with Tony’s rep of obnoxious-ness, the lounge singer was on surprisingly good behavior around all the Muppets and their handlers. It was probably either his absence from Hollywood or just being in the company of others who never completely grew up that caused Tony to be so friendly.