Rick Mohr writes to ask me about a new weblog that claims to be by Andy Kaufman…
I know you are always posting about celebrities and artists who have passed away, and I enjoy your insights on their careers, but what do you think about this one? Do you think it is really Andy?
I think it's amazing (and probably a tribute to Mr. Kaufman's expertise at hoaxing) that his mortality is still the subject of discussion. Yeah, right: At the peak of his creative energy and earning power, a guy is really going to give it all up and drop out of sight for twenty years and cause enormous grief to his friends and family…and for what would be, at best, a pretty feeble joke. Put it this way: If Andy had decided to fake his death, he would have been enormously visible just before he "died." Then he would have come back within a few months…and also in a spectacular manner, not popping up with a weblog.
I mean, the way the "hoax" could have worked was that Andy died and then his friend Bob Zmuda, who took over as Tony Clifton, would have gone on appearing in that guise. I never thought Clifton was much of a joke but to the extent there was one, it was that people thought it was Andy Kaufman under the bad makeup, long after it had become Zmuda. So I can imagine Andy "dying," Zmuda continuing to perform as Clifton and it becoming common knowledge that it was Zmuda. Then, at some point, Kaufman takes over the role again and people continue to think it's Zmuda…until at one point, Tony Clifton is on Saturday Night Live (let's say) and he gets so abusive that someone breaks character and yells, "Okay, we've all had enough of this! We all know it's Bob Zmuda playing Andy Kaufman's character." And "Clifton" starts screaming that he'd not Bob Zmuda…until he finally rips off the makeup and he's revealed as Kaufman.
That would have been a helluva joke but they never set up anything like that…and even if they had, it isn't worth twenty of someone's best years. Six months, tops. Maybe it's time to finally let the guy rest in peace.