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Dennis
Hof and Bob Zmuda
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George
Shapiro, Lynne Margulies, Bob Zmuda, and Andy Dick
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Andy
Kaufman, for those of you who never knew or don’t remember, was
a very quirky comedian in the late 70s and early 80s, who had
a running part on the TV sitcom “Taxi” and who
died of lung cancer in his mid-thirties (he never smoked).
Aside from his frequent appearances and fame from “Taxi” and “Saturday
Night Live,” he had a very big presence in L.A., where
I happened to be living at the time, where you could see any
number of famous working comedians at Elaine Shore’s
(Pauly’s mother) Comedy Store and the
Improv on Melrose. Robin Williams, who was
already a big big star by then, was another. Williams often
worked the Improv and even the sidewalk out front after the
show. L.A. was a working comedian’s town.
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Mancow
introduced the show at the House of Blues
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Kaufman, born
and bred in Great Neck, Long Island, a largely upper-middleclass
and striving community, a kind of Jewish version of Greenwich,
was a nut. He was its flip side. I don’t mean that disrespectfully.
I mean that he was entirely who he was. You never got the feeling
he came back to anybody else’s reality. He was always out
there. He even wasn’t funny all the time, but that was funny
too. Funny in that he kept you watching and wondering about what
was coming next. He was in the terms of the culture, the jester,
the clown, through and through; very endearing and sad at times,
even when at his most remote: the dear departed.
Then about 1982-83, it became known that he was ill, with cancer.
Kind of shocking for such a young and brilliant talent; kind of unbelievable.
And deeply sad. But it turned out to be true. And in May 1984, he
died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. He was thirty-five years old. It was
like, how could this be true?
It also turned out that Andy Kaufman treated his ill-health and impending
death with the same unique take on things. He turned it into the
notion that his death was going to be a stunt, that he was faking
it, that he’d disappear, go off somewhere, and return 20 years
later. From the dead. Like everything else in his “work” (which
was his life), there was a credibility that continued to intrigue
and amuse. And so when he actually died, the question remained for
some: would he be back? |
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Tony
Clifton and the Cliftonettes rock the House of Blues
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Twenty
years later was last Sunday, May 16th, and out
in Hollywood at the House of Blues on Sunset there was an event
created around Andy Kaufman’s incarnation (and perhaps “re”).
Present at the creation were his best friend and head writer Bob
Zmuda, the real George Shapiro (played
in the movie by Danny DeVito, the real Lynne
Margulies (played in the movie by Courtney
Love), Man on the Moon screenwriter Larry
Karaszewski, Caroline Rhea, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Dick, Paul Rudd,
Phil Hendrie, Jerry “The King” Lawler,
Rich Voss, Zack Galifianakis, Budd Friedman, George Schlatter and
a rare performance by Tony Clifton and his Steamy Cliftonettes.
Tony Clifton at one time was thought to be a character created by
Andy. In fact, he was a character borrowed for re-creation by Andy
(and very successfully on SNL). And the celebrated with a reception,
a performance, a premiere screening, a conga line to the Comedy Store
down the street, along with Star performances at the Comedy Store
and then a midnight candlelight vigil on Sunset. The great man returneth
no matter what. The hell with Great Neck and all that, right Andy? |
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Dennis
Hof with his girls and Ron Jeremy
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George
Shapiro and Budd Friedman
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The
Cliftonettes
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Jerry
Lawler with his girlfriend and Bob Zmuda
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| Photographs
by Wayne Williams |
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