January 1998. It’s my last night in San Francisco and I’m sitting on the end of the bed, flicking through the TV channels – an endless glut of commercials, gameshows and evangelists. I arrive at Comedy Central and watch the dying moments of a Dana Carvey gig.
Following the credits, the continuity announcer pipes up: “He may be dead, but he’s dead funny. Yup – it’s that time again. Andy Kaufman coming up.” Threatened with the alternative of Bruce Hornsby: Behind The Music on VH1 I return to Comedy Central; I’m left wondering if there’s anyone funny in America at all. Intentionally, at least.
There’s a documentary on called I’m From Hollywood and it’s all about Andy Kaufman. I don’t recall having heard his name but assume, because I know he’s dead if nothing else, that he’s either an angry, drug-addled John Belushi/Chris Farley type or a Henny Youngman/Milton Berle member of the old school …
1971. Why would a crowd of punters who’ve paid to see a stand-up comedy show at Friedman’s Improv sit and listen as a guy stands on stage reading, straight-faced, from that old school reading list classic, The Great Gatsby? Andy, in jacket and cravat, has announced, in pseudo-aristocratic tones, that he will read from the aforementioned book. The audience chuckle in anticipation. He reads. After a few seconds the laughter dies down, as Andy continues. Perhaps a minute later, the audience laugh again, at the guy’s sheer nerve. Andy looks up, offended: “If you don’t mind, we’ve got a lot to get through.” The audience laugh once more as he continues to recite.
Eventually, baffled, angry, or just resigned, they amble out of the venue. Andy remains on stage, reading aloud. (Years later, performing the same routine on television, he let the audience vote on whether he keep reading or put a record on. When they voted to hear the record, they discovered it was simply a recording of Andy, reading from the book.)
Back in 1971, before TV brought him stardom, Andy became a regular at Friedman’s. Barely in his 20s, he might sing the entire 100 Bottles of Beer song to similar effect. Perhaps he’ll appear on stage in a sleeping bag and sleep through the entire show …
George Shapiro, manager to the likes of Dick Van Dyke and Carl Reiner, saw Andy at Friedman’s Improv and signed him up straight away. Four years later, following a successful audition for NBC executive Dick Ebersol in LA, Andy was invited to appear on the inaugural broadcast of a new show called Saturday Night Live. On the programme Andy lip-synched to the theme from Mighty Mouse and became an instant favourite, making several guest appearances between 1975 and 1982.
One of his most popular routines was Foreign Man, later to become the inspiration for the part which Andy is best remembered for – Latka Gravas in the US sitcom Taxi. Foreign Man would appear on stage and, in his softly spoken pidgin English, tell some awful gags followed by a host of poor impersonations. Audiences were embarrassed for this Eastern European performer, evidently a star in his own country but out of his depth in the big ol’ US. “Tank you veddy much,” said a timid Andy after each impression, as they gawped and cringed at this endearing, utterly hopeless man – his presence an error, surely.
Eventually Andy would announce that he was going to impersonate Elvis. The audience groaned openly. This was before the days of the Elvis Impersonator as we know it, and the King was greatly unfashionable at the time, eating his way through Vegas, glories long behind him. The lights would go down, and Andy would ceremoniously don his costume. The crowd, expecting the worst, were brought to their feet as Andy, in perfect Deep South accent, did an uncanny impression. They’d all been had. Ovation.
At the age of 15, Andy began a fascination with Presley that never waned. When he made up his mind that he wanted to perform, the story goes, Andy travelled to a Vegas casino where Elvis was due to perform to tell him the news. Andy hid in a kitchen cupboard for hours, having concluded that the only way the King could reach the auditorium without being besieged by fans was to cut through the kitchen.
When Elvis appeared, Andy burst out of the cupboard and approached him. The King, ignoring the advice of his minders, stopped to greet the boy, patiently listening to the excited youngster’s outburst and wishing him all the best. Years later, after his idol’s death, Kaufman quietly paid a visit to Gracelands. The staff recognised him and ushered him into the private quarters of the estate. Andy was humbled to see a number of his videotapes on Elvis’s shelf.
Andy died, aged 35, from lung cancer in May 1984. Few people mourned. Not because the “DaDa of Ha Ha” had fallen from favour: it was just that this dramatic declaration was thought by many, including his close friends, to be another outrageous stunt. You see, whether he was a comic, Elvis, Foreign Man, a magician, a bongo player or just a generous man standing on-stage at Carnegie Hall inviting the whole audience to join him for milk and cookies, Andy’s refusal to break character, to let the audience in on the joke, often pushed his art over the edge. Offstage, he frequently pushed the limits of reality.
The best example of this is Tony Clifton. Following the widespread exposure that Taxi brought to Latka Gravas, the mainstream TV-friendly appropriation of Foreign Man, Andy felt slightly at a loss. The routine had lost its impact. Thus Clifton, a loud, abusive Las Vegas lounge lizard (who Andy, of course, claimed to have met in Vegas while searching for Elvis) began to appear, sometimes opening for Rodney Dangerfield, other times for Andy himself. By provoking the audience with his incompetence and his rude, insensitive behaviour, Clifton was the perfect vehicle.
But because Clifton was a real person, he had to exist offstage. Pity (or envy) the diners who sat near him in restaurants, as, puffing on a fat cigar and knocking back the whiskeys, he loudly carpeted the maitre d’ before tucking in to a rump steak. It couldn’t have been Andy, a devoted follower of transcendental meditation who was a strict vegetarian, never swore, and would leave a room if anyone so much as pulled out a cigarette.
Clifton’s finest moment came when Andy helped him negotiate a contract with the producers of Taxi guaranteeing Clifton a role in one episode with an option for further appearances, as well as his own trailer and a couple of strippers thrown in. The shows were never filmed. Clifton’s outrageous behaviour on set ensured that he was fired. As security guards led him away, he was heard to yell “I’ll sue all your fucking asses! You’ll never work in Vegas again!” The following week Andy arrived at the studio, business as usual, acting as if nothing had happened.
I’m From Hollywood, the documentary I saw that night, concentrates on Andy’s wrestling career. Andy’s interest in wrestling started at a young age and in 1979 he began his reign as World Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion, challenging any woman in the audience to wrestle him in exchange for a thousand dollars and, later, marriage. “This is NOT a comedy routine. This is NOT a skit. OK? This is real. I am here to wrestle with a woman.” In 1983 Andy retired, undefeated, having wrestled more than 400 females.
However, during one of his bouts, the reigning southern heavyweight champion Jerry Lawler interfered and almost cost Andy the match. A huge feud developed between the two, culminating at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee on April 5 1982. After six minutes Andy was knocked out and stretchered off, seemingly unconscious. Diagnosed with “seriously injured cervical vertebrae”, he is said to have spent three days in traction before being released. His subsequent attempts to gain revenge (including a physical confrontation on The David Letterman Show) are featured in the movie biography, Man on the Moon.
The title is taken from REM’s 1992 musical tribute to Andy. Filming began a few months after I saw I’m From Hollywood. I was thrilled as information about the project started to appear on the internet. Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, The People Vs Larry Flynt) was to direct, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood) were to write the screenplay and, fittingly, REM would provide the music. But who was to play Andy? Jim Carrey became the frontrunner.
As news filtered through, there was an uproar from many of Andy’s fans who feared the film would become another Carrey vehicle rather than a tribute to their hero. Despite the response, Forman cast Carrey in the role. One footnote, though: the cast list includes a certain Tony Clifton as himself. Clifton’s occasional, unscheduled appearances over the years at various comedy gigs and at a recent press conference for the film have compounded the myth that Andy is still alive, playing the biggest joke of all on us. Go and see Man on the Moon and the truth will be revealed. Or will it? Move over Elvis. There’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Andy.