`And now for a hot new comic from Great Neck, Long Island. Let's hear it for Mr Andy Kaufman," announced the presenter on the cult US comedy show, Saturday Night Live. Kaufman, decked out in smoking jacket and cravat, took to the stage, asked for a bit of quiet and then began to read extracts from The Great Gatsby. A few minutes in, as the crowd grew restless, he said; "If you don't mind, we've a lot to get through". A while later, as people began to shuffle nervously in their seats, he asked them whether they would prefer to hear a record. Yes, they would. Kaufman played them a recording of him reading from The Great Gatsby.
His colleagues on the show - John Belushi, Bill Murray and Chevvy Chase - couldn't understand why, despite their own pyrotechnic displays of comedy, everybody just talked about the scrawny Jewish kid from Long Island who, when he wasn't reading to the audience from books, would be singing along to recordings of the theme tune from the cartoon series Mickey Mouse - or, other times, Pop Goes The Weasel.
Not since Lenny Bruce had a performer aroused so much interest/controversy and rarely, since, has such a bizarre avant-garde approach paid off. Part performance artist, part comedy guerrilla, Andy Kaufman was probably the result of a surreal theatrical experiment: one where someone plucks a character out of a Samuel Beckett play and force-feeds him LSD - just to see what will happen.
The Dada of Ha Ha had a fairly conventional upbringing, but the warning signs were there early on when the then schoolboy announced he was going to become a major international star. Kaufman's unique and dramatic way of expressing this was to travel to Las Vegas, where his hero Elvis Presley was playing a concert. He hid himself for eight hours in a kitchen cupboard of the hotel where Presley was performing and when Presley passed, he jumped out (provoking Presley's security guards to draw their guns) and declared "I'm going to be as big as you". Oddly enough, years later, a regular visitor to Gracelands told how Presley had all of Kaufman's videos and was an avid fan. In a similar display of fandom, REM wrote their Man On The Moon song about him.
On this side of the water, though, Kaufman is only known for his role in the hit sitcom Taxi, where he played the role of Latka Gravas. He based Gravas on his own "Foreign Man" character, the turn which first brought him to the attention of the Saturday Night Live people. "Foreign Man" would appear in the clubs around New York, upsetting people with his poor command of English and really bad impersonations. They would be embarrassed by this man who they thought was from Eastern Europe and although evidently a big star back there just couldn't do it for American audiences. Eventually, "Foreign Man" would announce another bad impersonation, this time Elvis Presley - and, just as people groaned, he would launch into an electrifying and totally accurate impersonation. It would bring the house down.
Despite his growing fame and star turn on Taxi, Kaufman continued to work as a bus-boy and, in between all of this, he was also the Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World. This category of fighting (which he made up himself) saw him defeat over 400 women wrestlers during his reign from 1979 to 1983. Odd? Well, maybe, but wait until you hear about Tony Clifton. Although in real life, Kaufman was a strict vegetarian, a violent anti-smoker and a follower of transcendental meditation, he created an alter-ego called Tony Clifton who was a meat-eating, chain-smoking, foulmouthed creation.
Things started to go a bit funny when Kaufman demanded that Clifton be given a job on Taxi. He was, and when he turned up for work on his first day, he was so rude to the other actors that security had to lead him off the set. The next day, Kaufman turned up for work as if nothing had happened. Although they were the same person, Kaufman always denied any knowledge of Clifton and things got very confusing one night when Kaufman was being interviewed live on one TV chat show and on the other channel, also going out live, was an interview with Clifton . . . Figure that out if you can.
When he died of lung cancer in 1984, aged 35, the attendance at his funeral was swelled by 42 distraught prostitutes from Reno. The previous year, Kaufman had visited the city and vowed to stay as long as was necessary to sample all of the "ladies of the night". He was there for a week.
Just like Elvis, many believe that Kaufman isn't dead. Such speculation has increased over the last few months since the US release (it's out over here next month of the Milos Forman biographical film, The Man On The Moon. To the shock of his hardcore fans, Kaufman is played by Jim Carrey - an actor whose main attribute is pulling faces and someone who has made the fatal mistake of confusing talent with celebrity. The only person who could have come anywhere near Kaufman's maverick genius on screen was Robin Williams, but he baulked at the prospect of playing one of his comedy heroes.
Strangely, the film features an appearance by Tony Clifton. Confused? Then you'd better read this zinger of a biography.
Brian Boyd is an Irish Times journalist
