Andy Kaufman Revealed!: Best Friend Tells All FROM THE PUBLISHER
Andy Kaufman, best known for his portrayal of sweet-natured Latka on Taxi, was one of the most ingenious and controversial entertainers of his time.. "Now, for the first time, Andy's closest friend, writer, and coconspirator, Bob Zmuda, breaks his twenty-year silence about the truth behind the headlines. He paints an illuminating portrait of a complex, often misunderstood loner who seldom ventured out of his room unless it was to jar millions of television viewers with his calculated lunacy or to satisfy his myriad sexual fetishes. Zmuda describes how Andy made his living straddling the thin line between genius and insanity and how he influenced the likes of such comic luminaries as Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, David Letterman, Lily Tomlin, and John Belushi. Zmuda finally confesses what really happened between wrestler Jerry Lawler and Andy to cause Kaufman's hospitalization for a life-threatening neck injury and elucidates the notorious confrontation that followed on Late Night with David Letterman. In a great testimonial to the appeal of the antihero, he also relates the origin and rise of Tony Clifton, an obnoxious lounge lizard whom Andy metamorphosed into when his dark side felt playful.. "Zmuda offers rare and intimate perspectives and compelling behind-the-scenes stories about Elvis Presley, Andy Warhol, Richard Burton, the cast of Taxi, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Gilda Radner, among many others. And through deeply personal diary entries, Zmuda chronicles Andy Kaufman's disturbing last days, his heroic struggle to cheat terminal cancer, and the public hysteria that continues to this day over the possibility that Andy faked his death.
FROM THE CRITICS
Keith Phipps - Orion.com
Andy Kaufman was, by all accounts, a difficult person to get to know, and had he not been, it's hard to imagine his comedy working half as well. With Kaufman--famous for his work on Taxi, but legendary for what he did elsewhere--it was always clear that he was making a joke, but never entirely clear who it was on, or even if he was in on it. At one point in Andy Kaufman Revealed!, his writing partner, best friend, and co-conspirator Bob Zmuda describes the real Kaufman as being somewhere unseen working the controls of his body from a bridge deep within his mind. That makes him a particularly tricky subject for a biography, and Zmuda's is one of two timed to coincide with Milos Forman's forthcoming biopic Man On The Moon.
As a biographer, Zmuda suffers from a problem of perspective: In some ways he's too close to Kaufman to write about him, and in others too distant. For many moments in Kaufman's life, he simply wasn't there, not being present during his childhood and barred from the set of Taxi and Heartbeeps as too great a distraction to the easily distracted actor. But taken as a personal reminiscence, Andy Kaufman Revealed! proves both enlightening and entertaining. Kaufman lived his act, and while it's true that if anyone got a chance to know the real Kaufman it's Zmuda, it's more important for the sake of the book that he knew the act. The "revealed" of the title is only half there for the sake of a joke: Zmuda explains what went into such creations as Tony Clifton, Kaufman's wrestling career, and other elaborate pranks that played themselves out in public. It's fascinating material, and it goes a long way toward compensating for the fact that Andy Kaufman Revealed! reads with all the flatness usually associated with ghostwritten memoirs (which it is). Also curious: the tone with which Zmuda addresses Kaufman's sexual exploits and involvement in Transcendental Meditation. Maybe it's co-writer Matthew Scott Hansen's fault, or maybe it's Zmuda's way of doing another joke with Kaufman by parodying tell-all biographies, but the book's passionless, voyeuristic reportage seems less interested in understanding and more interested in exploiting the peculiar aspects of its subject's private life. Only in its closing chapters, which address Kaufman's sudden death from cancer in 1984, does Zmuda let his guard down and portray his friend in terms that are moving as well as entertaining.
Still, Andy Kaufman Revealed! is difficult to put down, providing a compelling look at the life of comedy genius whose comedy and genius were his life.
Lance Gould - NY Times Book Review
Zmuda has composed an often hilarious tribute to his best friend that...reveal[s] many of this master trickster's secrets.
Publishers Weekly
The brilliantly subversive comedian Andy Kaufman is remembered today not only for his ability to make people laugh but also for his unnerving blend of shock humor and high-concept performance art. Fifteen years after Kaufman's death from lung cancer at the age of 35, his close friend and collaborator Zmuda unveils an intimate portrait of the enigmatic performer. In 1972, Zmuda, then a struggling writer/comedian, first saw Kaufman perform at New York's Improv as Foreign Man, a lovable dork, who, after bombing miserably on stage, would burst into a dead-on impersonation of Elvis Presley. Foreign Man would become Kaufman's signature act, leading to regular appearances on Saturday Night Live and a role as Latka on the TV sitcom Taxi. Yet Kaufman, according to Zmuda, often grew bored with celebrity and constantly pushed the comic envelope: inventing an alter ego, the swaggering, foul-mouthed lounge singer Tony Clifton; taking a Hollywood audience out for milk and cookies (a concept for which Zmuda claims credit); going on tour to wrestle college-age women, an idea apparently dreamed up by Kaufman in order to get women to sleep with him. Kaufman's unpredictability was such that audiences never knew whether or not they were in on the joke; when the comedian succumbed to cancer, many wondered whether he was faking it. Zmuda reveals some long-kept secrets--including the truth about the infamous feud with wrestler Jerry Lawler, which landed Kaufman in the hospital. Although Zmuda touches upon Kaufman's obsessive-compulsive behavior and the possibility that he might have exhibited a form of multiple personality disorder, this highly absorbing memoir will be read less for its insights into Kaufman's psyche than for the immediacy with which it recounts his brief but blazing career. (Sept.) FYI: The Andy Kaufman craze continues this fall as Universal Pictures releases the Andy Kaufman biopic, Man on the Moon, directed by Milos Forman and starring Jim Carrey. In November, Delacorte will publish Lost in the Fun House: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman by Bill Zehme. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Michael Colton - Brill's Content
In the 15 years since his death, Andy Kaufman and his performance-art comedy have become legendary among his peers and the public. Now, with a bio-pic starring Jim Carey opening in December, Kaufman's having a much deserved moment in the sun. Andy Kaufman Revealed! Best Friends Tell
All, by Kaufman's writing partner, Bob Zmuda, with Matthew Scott Hansen, details the brilliance of Kaufman's
career—beyond playing Latka Gravas on the sitcom Taxi and regular appearances on Saturday Night Live—as seen by his closest confidant. Kaufman redefined the relationship between performer and audience; he would rather make his audience angry than make it laugh. Or, perhaps, as Carrey says in the book, "Andy was the director and the audience"—and we were his performers.
Kirkus Reviews
Andy Kaufman's best friend may be taking us for one last ride in his tell-all biography, but his rendition of their shared lunacy is so heartfelt and funny that it hardly matters. All the anecdotes seem kosher, but since most of Zmuda's tales are about himself and Kaufman duping their audiences, it's hard to be absolutely sure. Like much of Kaufman's humor, half the fun is just guessing. The other half is sitting back and letting the action happen. After all, this is the story of a man whose friends didn't even believe he had really died of cancer in 1984, and they had watched him waste away for months. Zmuda, who executive produces HBO's Comic Relief, starts the story off in the early '70s, when he and Kaufman collided on the New York comedy scene. They were nut cases, both of them. Kaufman was the performer, Zmuda was the guy who handled the details. The sheer outrageousness of their exploits—from the mysterious screenwriter Zmuda worked for to Kaufman's insatiable libido to the comic's final days trying to beat cancer through psychic surgery—makes for a great read. Neverthelss, Zmuda is a reluctant storyteller. Much of his motivation for revealing secrets is the upcoming movie Man on the Moon (of which he is an executive producer), starring Jim Carrey and directed by Milos Forman, which is going to spill what Kaufman's friends have kept quiet over the years. The revelations—such as what really went on with the public feud with wrestler Jerry Lawler and who exactly was dressed up as Kaufman's obnoxious alter ego Tony Clifton—are anticlimactic because our interest was never about the truth anyway. The one intriguing mystery that Zmuda can't unpuzzle and thatguides the entire narrative is the mysterious nature of Kaufman's comic gifts. Was he a genius or was he absolutely crazy? Zmuda's story is a riot, but Kaufman took that answer to the grave.
Home
