American actor who performed his off-beat, highly original, stand-up comedy and impressionist routine on TV, in clubs and concerts. His act ranged from brilliant to boring to bizarre. His career snowballed after he began appearing on Saturday Night Live, 1975, and then became a regular on the series, “Taxi,” 1978. He was in the film “Heartbleeps” with co-star Bernadette Peters, in which he played a romantic robot.
He died of lung cancer 16 May 1984 at the age of 35. Fifteen years later he had a resurgence of interest with a memoir by his friend Bob Zmuda, “Andy Kaufman Revealed,” (September 1999) and a biography by Bill Zehme, “Lost in the Funhouse,” (December 1999). On 22 December 1999, a movie based on his life, opens, with Jim Carrey playing Kaufman.
The comic performed for himself from the time he was a kid, alone in his room. As he grew older, he put on his acts for his two younger siblings. As a teen he acted at kid’s birthday parties. At Grahm Junior College, he discovered his lifelong interest in transcendental meditation, which also gave him the confidence to take his act into small Manhattan clubs, then to the Improv in Los Angeles. His pinnacle was a 1979 performance at Carnegie Hall, where he rented 20 school buses to take a crowd of 2,800 out for milk and cookies at a nearby school after the show.
Kaufman’s twist became darker and was often offensive. Not everyone was amused at the cruelty he leveled at an audience, but eventually, his viewers simply got tired of the abuse. In 1982, after his 14th appearance on SNL, viewers voted him off the show in a call-in poll and the following year, “Taxi” was cancelled. Late in 1983, he was exiled from the TM movement, a bitter blow.
At 20, Kaufman had a daughter with a girlfriend but for the rest of his life, played the field, even when dating film editor Lynne Margulies. Near the end of 1983, a persistent cough was diagnosed as lung cancer. Until the end, he believed he’d get better, trying every remedy including hypnotism and faith healing.
He died of lung cancer in Los Angeles at 6:27pm on 16 May 1984 at the age of 35.
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