Andy Kaufman Revealed! (37 page)

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.

As I strolled around the set I saw that Henson had built a warm and friendly creative environment outside the hubbub of Hollywood, and I admired him for it. The set buzzed with busy teenagers, all assistants and interns in Henson’s dream factory, building scenery and making molds for various Muppet characters. I had heard that Jim Henson’s only formal agreement with his manager of twenty years, Bernie Brillstein, was a handshake. One afternoon while Andy meditated, Jim and I struck up a conversation.

“So I understand you worked with Howdy Doody,” began Jim. “How was he?”

As I started in on the story of Howdy’s visit to Hollywood and Jim asked questions, he referred to Howdy, as Andy would have, as if he were another actor, a real person. Jim’s sense of open wonderment and lack of guile endeared him to me immediately, just as it had to another guy, named Kaufman. As I detailed Andy’s encounter with Howdy — first Andy’s sense of betrayal, then his unqualified acceptance—Jim’s eyes misted a bit. “I know exactly how he felt,” he said.

A few years ago I was saddened to hear of Jim’s passing. Like Andy, that gentle man left us all too early. I couldn’t help but wonder if men like them, children at heart, weren’t destined to grow old.

If I had to pick a favorite Kaufman/Zmuda routine, at the top of my list would have to be our performance at Rick Newman’s “Catch a Rising Star Tenth Anniversary HBO Special.” Andy could be very cryptic about business matters, and one day as we prepared to board a plane (right foot first) after a college gig, I saw we were not going back to L.A. but on to New York.

“What gives, Kaufman?”

“We’re going to New York. I have some HBO special or something like that.”

Back then HBO didn’t mean what it does today.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “but I’ve gotta do something, I’m supposed to do a whole set.”

“You haven’t even planned it yet?”

“No. Maybe I’ll do Elvis.”

For Andy, pulling out Elvis was like most people putting on their socks. As we got on the plane and sat down, Andy turned to me. “Hey, what if we do something different? Something fun. I’ll do my standard set, and you can be in the audience. You be a plant and we’ll do something.”

“How ‘bout I heckle you?”

Andy’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah, that’s good! Really criticize me.”

“I’ll jump on you with all that bad shit the critics say.”

Andy nodded gleefully. “Great! I love it!”

So as we winged our way to the Big Apple, we worked out the beats of our scam. As his attacker, I would be believed, because only insiders in the business knew who I really was. My assault would focus on the repetitiveness of Andy’s routines, so he girded his loins for my onslaught. I decided to hold back a few items during our airliner conference — I figured it might be interesting to see him
really
sweat.

On the bill that night were Billy Crystal, our old buddy Robin Williams, Richard Belzer, who was also a friend, and rocker Pat Benatar. This was sort of a homecoming for Benatar, who had been discovered some years earlier by Rick Newman. Consequently, she invited her aunt and uncle to attend the show. Residents of nearby New Jersey, her aunt and uncle had never seen her perform live because they feared the dangers of the rock element drawn to such shows. Though somewhat provincial, Pat’s relatives felt since the show was to be televised, what harm could come to them? Another inducement was that the uncle loved Billy Crystal, so once it was decided they’d saddle up and ride into the big city, Pat’s uncle slipped a modest revolver into his boot for protection, and off they went. Rick Newman gave them a wonderful table in the center of the room and the show commenced.

Belzer introduced Andy, who came out and began his standard Foreign Man set. He wasn’t a minute into it when I started walking on his jokes, repeating them about a half second after he said them. Then I started getting
ahead
of him, nailing his lines a second or two
before
he said them. This seemed to rattle him, and he paused several times as I coldly let each joke out of the bag before he could finish. Finally, when I wouldn’t let him complete any of his Archie Bunker bit, he stopped and leaned past the microphone. “Sir, you got a problem?”

“The only problem is I’m doin’ your act for you,” I said from my table about six feet from the stage.

“Is there a problem?” he repeated, as rivulets of sweat started to streak down his temples.

“No,” I said, “there’s no problem. If you did some new material I wouldn’t know what you were gonna do next.”

“Look,” he said defensively, “they asked me to do this.”

He started explaining he had a lot of new material.

“Oh, yeah?” I said. “Well, I’ve followed your career for a long time, Kaufman, and I haven’t seen anything new in years. Wrestling women? That’s not entertaining.”

A few in the crowd applauded at that, and Andy winced. “I was on
Fridays,”
insisted Andy, “and I did something that got a lot of people talking.”

“What?” I asked. “You pushed some other actors around and call that real? That was a put-on, Kaufman, everybody knows that. It’s not original, it’s not comedy.”

I was hitting nerves, and Andy’s streams of sweat were not all products of the conscious effort of a trained yogi. I was really getting to him. We went back and forth for a while, then Benatar’s aunt said something, and I turned around and said, “Fuck you.” Well, that didn’t sit well with her husband, and suddenly he was threatening to come over and straighten me out. Rick Newman, who knew nothing of the gun, was at that moment crawling on the floor toward the uncle — trying to stay off-camera — to inform him I was but a harmless plant.