it a full four years before he supposedly died.
It appears for all to see in black and white on page 124 of The Tony Clifton Story, a script that Andy and I wrote together for Universal Studios in 1980. I remember the day he rushed into our bungalow on the Universal lot quite worked up, nothing short of in a frenzy. “We’ve got to change the script, Bob. I just had a great idea.” I said, “Fantastic. What is it?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that he had scribbled on at 3:00 a.m. the night before and handed it to me. It read: “Tony Clifton dies of cancer at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Hollywood, California.” We put it in the script. In 1984, “Andy Kaufman would die of cancer at Cedars-Sinai hospital,” proof enough that he had decided four years earlier the exact disease he would use to fake his death and the hospital that he would stage it in. This fact has been recently verified by Universal Studios’s script department, which has had the original script in its possession for the last thirty-five years. A statistician from the University of California—Berkeley ran an odds-predictability study listing all the possible ways one could die and a total of all the hospitals in the U.S. Statistically, the odds of someone’s predicting what he would die from and the hospital he would die in are 780,000,000 to one. Basically an impossibility. That S.O.B. knew back in 1980 exactly what he would supposedly die from and where.
Actual page from The Tony Clifton Story, written in 1980, proof that Andy had decided four years before his supposed passing in 1984 what disease and hospital he would use to fake his death.
Equally remarkable is the last recording on the Andy and His Grandmother album (track 17), where the microcassette tape recorder catches Andy and me talking candidly. Out of nowhere, Andy comes up with the idea of faking his death for the first time. The recording ends with my saying, “Andy, you fake your death and nobody believes you, you’ll go on forever … immortal.” Kaufman’s reply is, “GREAT!”
When the Kaufman family heard of the release of the tapes, they tried everything in their power to stop it, sending threatening legal letters to both Lynne and Drag City, the company that released them. I couldn’t help but wonder why they were so concerned. Was it Andy openly talking about faking his death? What were they trying to hide? I could only wonder if maybe they were in cahoots with him all along. Maybe Andy agreed with my thinking that it would be a cruel trick to make his mother believe he was dead when he wasn’t and told her. Does track 17 reveal Andy’s smoking gun? Did it have to be censored by the Kaufman family at all costs because it was a clear indication that he faked his death? What or who is in his crypt? His fans want to know. Just ninety minutes with a backhoe at the grave site and everyone can get a good night’s sleep.
Working with Andy was like working with the great Houdini, and time and time again I’d see him go to incredible, painstaking lengths to pull off illusions. So why not this? Why not the greatest illusion of all time? And I wish I had a nickel for every time he called me, turning it around over and over in his mind on just how to get away with it. And those odds: 780,000,000 to one. How could he possibly have predicted the disease and hospital years before? And after all, wasn’t it I who told him, “Andy, you even have to fool me.” Had he even fooled Dr. Zmudee, as he called me? Maybe temporarily. After all, there was a body, wasn’t there? There is a death certificate, isn’t there? No, he did it. I know he did it. The brilliant bastard faked his own death, and he’s going to return thirty years later, just like he said, and it will be the single most amazing event in the history of showbiz!
* * *
One day my phone rang—surprisingly, it was Danny DeVito on the other end. I’d met Danny a few years earlier on the set of Taxi, but that was nothing that would warrant a personal call. He was quite excited: “Bob, I have great news! Universal Studios is going to make a major motion picture about Andy’s life, and I’m going to produce it through my company, Jersey Films. I’m even getting my old buddy, Milos Forman, two-time Academy Award winner, to direct it. And as Andy’s writer and best friend, I want you involved in a big way. This film is going to be amazing.” After my shock subsided, I congratulated Danny and told him how proud Andy would be of him. I then asked what he needed me to do. He said, “For now, nothing. I’ll be contacting you in a week or so with more details. Till then, hold tight and don’t tell anyone. I want everything signed, sealed, and delivered before we make an announcement.” “I totally understand, Danny.” Danny’s last words to me were, “I’ll call you back in no longer than two weeks.” When I hung up the phone, I was ecstatic. Finally, Andy would get his due and, unashamedly, so would I. After all, ever since his “supposed” death, I had done everything within my power to keep his memory alive.
Weeks went by and every time the phone rang, I jumped, hoping it would be DeVito. Weeks turned to months. The call never came. I chalked it up to the deal’s having collapsed, something that took place on a daily basis in Hollywood. I stopped anticipating that DeVito would call back. I figured he was probably bloodied by the studio. To save face, he just wasn’t going to call back.
More time passed and I thought the whole matter was long dead. Then one day, my answering machine got a workout when call after call came in congratulating me on the fact that Universal was indeed making the film. Supposedly there was a huge write-up about it in Daily Variety. I ran to the nearest 7-Eleven and swooped up a half-dozen copies. I stood out in the street fighting the wind, trying to read the article. There it was in print, just as Danny said. Milos was going to direct, DeVito was going to produce with his partners Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg, Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander would write the screenplay, George Shapiro and Howard West would executive produce. The film was to be called Man on the Moon, after the hit R.E.M. song about Andy. Everything and everyone was mentioned … except … except … where the fuck’s my name? … except … me!
I called a friend I knew from Universal when we had been developing The Tony Clifton Story before Kaufman’s disappearing act. His name was Sean Daniel (Dazed and Confused, Tombstone, The Mummy). I told him my story. He concluded that I had “danced to the Hollywood two-step.” I asked what the hell was that. He put it simply: “You’ve been cut out. Actually,” he added, “You were never really in.” “But DeVito called me,” I said. “Obviously someone got to DeVito, Bob, and said we don’t need Zmuda.” “Is there anything I can do, Sean?” “Oh, yes,” he said with great confidence. “Listen to me and do exactly what I say.”
The letter Sean instructed me to send “to everyone” was polite yet firm. It sincerely congratulated all involved on how wonderful it was that Andy was finally being recognized. Of course, it also conveyed that since I, being his writer and all, was not involved, they did not have the right to portray a laundry list of material such as Carnegie Hall when we took the entire audience out in school buses for milk and cookies, him wrestling women, Tony Clifton, the Great Gatsby, the masked magician, the fight on Letterman with Jerry Lawler, and a slew of other pieces that I had also developed with Kaufman. In short, all they’d be left with was basically Andy playing the congas and singing to the Mighty Mouse record.
Soon my phone was ringing off the hook with apologies: “A mere oversight.” In short order, I was made a co-executive producer on the film, allowed to choose whom I wanted to portray me, be downloaded by the writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, and most importantly, work closely with Jim Carrey, giving him insight into Kaufman and Kaufman’s alter-ego, the notorious lounge lizard Tony Clifton. For all this, I was rewarded quite handsomely financially, along with a single-card producer credit in the film.
As for Lynne, she was in New York when she got the call that the film was being made. She was told that the writers, Scott and Larry, would like to interview her. She met with Scott and Larry at their office on the Sony lot. They told her that they were having trouble getting a fix on Andy. “A very key moment in the research for us,”
