Andy Kaufman The comedian with a cult following, Andy Kaufman was born on January 17, 1949, in the upper-class Long Island suburb of Great Neck, New York. A born entertainer, at age nine, Kaufman was already performing at neighborhood kids’ parties. At sixteen years old, Kaufman tried out unsuccessfully for Budd Friedman's improvisational comedy club. Although Kaufman didn’t get the spot, it did not deter him from pursuing comedy. One year later, he was already polishing his Elvis Presley impersonation, which would go on to become his signature shtick. After graduating from high school, Kaufman enrolled in the television and radio program at Grahm Junior College in Boston, where he began performing at local coffee houses and appearing on the campus-sponsored show, The Soul Time Review. Kaufman eventually found his way back to Budd Friedman, through whom he landed a stand-up gig at a Long Island club, kicking off his stand-up career and leading him to various television appearances. During his mid-twenties, Kaufman appeared in the first broadcast of NBC's groundbreaking sketch comedy series, Saturday Night Live, presenting his unique brand of extreme and absurd comedy. By 1978, Kaufman had parlayed his popular character, “Foreign Man” into delightful auto mechanic, Latka Gravas on popular sitcom Taxi (1978-1983), also starring Tony Danza, Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsch, and Marilu Henner. Also during the late 70s, Kaufman, who loved professional wrestling but was too small to beat his male counterparts, created his famed world Inter-Gender Wrestling matches, in which he would wrestle female audience members who won a large cash prize if they could pin the comic. Four hundred women tried; none succeeded.
In 1981, Kaufman hosted experimental comedy show Fridays, but his penchant for intentionally flubbing his lines caused conflict between himself, the cast, and the crew. The following week, Kaufman televised a tearful apology which some suspected was a put-on. During a taping of the Late Night with David Letterman in 1982, Kaufman got into a fight with professional wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler, in which Kaufman threw hot coffee on the wrestler, who had previously inflicted a serious head injury on Kaufman during a match. The feud became the subject of a 1983 documentary chronicling Kaufman's wrestling career, I'm From Hollywood. In 1977, Kaufman made his feature-film debut in Demon, following up with three more films. By 1983, Kaufman had developed a cough that was diagnosed as a rare form of lung cancer. Kaufman, who had abstained from alcohol and tobacco and was a vegetarian, was only given a few months to live. A practitioner of transcendental meditation, Kaufman tried various alternative healing therapies and chemotherapy, but by 1984, cancer had claimed his life. Because of Kaufman’s penchant for unfathomable, elaborate showmanship, some fans believe his illness was a hoax, and that Kaufman will eventually return to the spotlight alive and well. Kaufman had even stated at one point that if he were to fake his own death, he would return twenty years later. On May 16, 2004, his surviving friends threw a “Welcome Home Andy” party, which Kaufman did not attend, except in spirit. In 1999, Jim Carrey, who shares the same birth date as Kaufman, played him in the film Man on the Moon, also starring Courtney Love and Danny DeVito, and also features an open ending that leaves Kaufman’s current status as dead or alive open to speculation. YUDDY |
