| Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman (January 17, 1949 – May 16, 1984) was a
New York-born American
self-described "song and dance man". Though many refer to him as a comedian, Andy
himself hated this, saying "I never told a joke in my life". He is one of the most famous practitioners of anti-humor. He was also a composer. He
graduated in 1971 from a now-defunct Grahm Junior College
where he studied television and completed projects that informed his later work.
His early work
Kaufman first caught people's attention with a character named "Foreign Man" in the early 1970s. "Foreign Man", who claimed to be from Caspiar, an island in the Caspian Sea, would appear on the stage of comedy clubs and
perform a number of bad impersonations (Archie Bunker, 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 hopeless "Foreign Man", 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.
"Latka"
Kaufman later reprised his "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 the 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 thinking that
Kaufman was joking. They were soon horrified to find out that he was completely serious and would read the entire book to
them.
"Tony Clifton"
Kaufman's second most well known character would be "Tony Clifton", the
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.
In 1979, Kaufman performed in front of a Carnegie Hall audience, which he later 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.
"Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion"
Kaufman grew up admiring professional wrestlers and
the fantasy 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 that 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, 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 as a gag
and not real as many believed at the time. In reality, Kaufman was not injured while wrestling Lawler, and in fact, the two were
friends.
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 allegedly voted to ban Kaufman from the show for good, though it was never made
clear whether or not this was a gag.
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 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 apparently a gag conceived by Andy Kaufman, but how many people were in on the gag (if any) was never made
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.
Throughout his entire professional career, Kaufman kept his day job, waiting on tables at Jerry's Famous Deli.
Kaufman's death, rebirth and legacy
Kaufman apparently died on May 16, 1984 of
lung cancer and was allegedly interred in the Beth David Cemetery, Elmont, New York (Long Island). Over the years, many people doubted
Kaufman's death, thinking that he staged it as the ultimate Andy Kaufman stunt. Kaufman himself even said that were he to fake
his death, he would return 20 years later, on May 16, 2004, a claim which has become urban legend.
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 (http://andykaufmanreturns.blogspot.com/).
However, these claims are highly questionable and are even self-contradictory in places (on the blog he contradicts the, now
suspended, press release which he apparently wrote and paid for himself). 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.
Another partly facetious theory making the rounds on the Internet is that Kaufman got plastic surgery to dramatically alter his appearance and is a current-day comedian or celebrity. Usually
the celebrity mentioned is Jim Carrey, who starred in Man on the Moon, the 1999 film
about Kaufman's life that was directed by Milos Forman. Carrey is a
long-time fan of Kaufman's and fought hard for the role, and even owns Kaufman's conga drums. (Also interestingly, he and Kaufman
share the same birthday: January 17th.) Additionally, Carrey's acting was considered uncannily close to the way Kaufman was
normally, even according to Kaufman's friend Bob Zmuda. (Incidentally, Zmuda was
in Batman Forever, which co-starred Carrey.) To "support" this
theory, parallels are often drawn from Kaufman's life to Carrey's movies, which include The Majestic, in which Carrey plays a man who loses his memory and lives another person's life, and
Me, Myself,
and Irene, in which Carrey plays the white father of three African-American males. However, even if one were to discount
Carrey's childhood as a fabrication, he first emerged as an actor in 1983, which is a year
too early. More likely is that Carrey's sense of humor was influenced by and is similar to Kaufman's.
The rock band R.E.M. wrote and recorded a song about Kaufman, "Man on the Moon", for their 1992 album Automatic for the
People. The song was also used as the title track for the film of the same name.
External links
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