Andy Kaufman

Lore & Background

Kaufman's act included singing the Mighty Mouse theme song and refusing to tell conventional jokes. His Foreign Man character would put on a rhinestone jacket and do a dead-on Elvis impersonation, tricking the audience. He caught the eye of talent agent George Shapiro, who signed him and landed him a role on Taxi, which Kaufman secretly hated. He created the villain character Tony Clifton with his creative partner Bob Zmuda. Kaufman decided to become a professional wrestler, wrestling only women (hired actresses) and declaring himself "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion". He feuded publicly with Jerry Lawler, who challenged him to a "real wrestling match". Lawler appeared to seriously injure Kaufman with a piledriver. Kaufman and Lawler were actually best friends and staged their feud as a joke. Kaufman disclosed he had been diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer. He arranged a booking at Carnegie Hall, his dream venue, culminating with inviting the entire audience out for milk and cookies. He died on May 16, 1984 at the age of 35. At his funeral, loved ones sang along to "This Friendly World" with a video of Kaufman. One year later, Tony Clifton appeared at Kaufman's tribute, performing "I Will Survive".

Reader's Guide

Andy Kaufman's significance lies in his radical redefinition of comedy as performance art. By refusing to tell jokes and instead creating characters that blurred the line between reality and fiction, he challenged audience expectations and often elicited confusion or hostility. His Foreign Man and Tony Clifton personas, along with his staged wrestling feud, demonstrated a commitment to maintaining character even offstage. Kaufman's work influenced later comedians and performance artists who explore discomfort and meta-humor. His legacy is preserved in the continued respect for his variety of characters, his counterintuitive approach, and his willingness to provoke negative reactions. The persistent rumors of a faked death underscore how thoroughly he merged his life with his art.

Did You Know?

• Kaufman's Carnegie Hall 'milk and cookies' performance actually occurred in 1979, five years before his death and well before his cancer diagnosis.
• The film Man on the Moon is deliberately ambiguous over whether Kaufman actually died or if this was a hoax as some fans believe.
• Kaufman and Jerry Lawler were actually best friends and staged their public feud as a joke.
• During filming of Man on the Moon, Jim Carrey and Jerry Lawler got into an altercation that led to Carrey being hospitalised with 4 compressed vertebrae.
• The film's title comes from R.E.M.'s 1992 song 'Man on the Moon', originally written in honor of Kaufman.