Shining a Spotlight 4.24.08: Andy Kaufman

I am, of course, talking about the feud between Jerry Lawler and Andy Kaufman.

To understand why this feud was so unique, you have to understand Andy Kaufman. That can be slightly difficult since you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who can actually say they understood Andy Kaufman. Nearly a quarter century after his death, Kaufman remains one of the most unique comedic performers of all time and his early death has only added to his mystique. Even in a profession known for eccentric minds, Kaufman was truly one of a kind, a man who seemed to operate on a completely different level than the rest of humanity. At times, that could go too far but showed how there is a very thin line between genius and insanity.

Kaufman rose to attention with an appearance on the first episode of Saturday Night Live where he lip-synched along with the theme from Mighty Mouse. He made more appearances, settling into a shtick where he would speak in a foreign accent, trying to do “impressions” of people where he spoke in that same voice. Just as the audience was getting tired of what seemed to be a bad act, Kaufman would launch into a killer impression of Elvis that the real Elvis actually claimed was his favorite. He got his big shot as the goofy foreigner Latka on the TV series Taxi and his star truly began to shine. He was soon much in demand by various comedy clubs and seemed poised to become a major star.

However, while easygoing in his performances, Kaufman could be a very intense figure behind the scenes which led to some clashes. He hated sitcoms and insisted that he be allowed to shake up Latka by having the guy show off different personalities. When people at his comedy shows called for more Latka stuff, he would actually sit down and read The Great Gatsby, keeping it up even when people began to leave. He would then ask if they wanted more of the book or a record. When they picked the record, he put one on…of him reading Gatsby. A famous instance of Kaufman liking to trick the audience came when he did a show at Carnegie Hall with his aged grandmother watching in the front row. At the end of the show, the “woman” stood up and removed a mask to reveal Robin Williams. Also at the show, an elderly woman appeared to have a heart attack on stage and Kaufman came out in a headdress to do a dance to revive her. To top it all off, Kaufman actually took the entire audience out in 20 buses for milk and cookies and invited them to join him for a performance on the Staten Island Ferry the next morning.

One of the most famous blow-ups came on Fridays, ABC’s attempt at an SNL like sketch comedy show. During one skit set in a restaurant, Kaufman suddenly broke character and refused to say his lines. Michael Richards (yes, that Michael Richards) walked off mid-scene, coming back holding the cue cards and handing them of to Kaufman. Kaufman responded by splashing Richards with water and they appeared ready to come to blows. It was later revealed that the two were playing a joke on everyone with the rest of the cast unaware.

The height of Kaufman’s ability to play with people was Tony Clifton. The character began popping up in the late 1970’s, an overweight and immensely untalented lounge singer/comedian with a nasal and annoying voice, dressed in stupid outfits with a thick mustache and sunglasses. He was the epitome of a washed-up showbiz act, a “star” who was too lazy to even bother remembering the lyrics to his own songs. He would also insult people as if it was comedy but just doing the insults. Needless to say, people did not respond to that very well at clubs where he would open for Kaufman and it’s debatable if they’d act better had they known it was Kaufman in disguise. What made it more wild was that Kaufman actually seemed to act like Clifton was a completely different person. Often, club managers would book Clifton, expecting to get Kaufman for cheap, only to have the real Kaufman come on during Clifton’s act as it was an imposter in the disguise. The height of this was when the Taxi producers had Clifton do a guest spot and Clifton showed up on set, insulting everyone, blowing lines and had to be ordered out. Kaufman would come on set the next day to apologize for Tony’s behavior and his co-stars didn’t know what was worse: that Andy truly believed Clifton was a different person or that he was going so far to keep up an act.

So as you can see, Kaufman was a man who enjoyed playing with people, who pushed boundaries and loved to blur the line between what was real and what wasn’t with an audience. So it makes perfect sense that he’d be drawn to wrestling. Kaufman had been a fan of the industry for a while, impressed by wrestlers basically pulling a grand hoax on the audience. In fact, he had starred in “The Venus Flytrap,” a short-lived Broadway play based on wrestling which closed in three nights. Kaufman soon began incorporating wrestling into his act, inviting women on stage to wrestle against him and doing the same on TV appearances. Before long, he was proclaiming himself the “Intergender Wrestling Champion of the World” and “defending” his title with $1000 offered to any woman who could beat him. That wasn’t enough for Kaufman, however. He had to go an extra mile and get involved in a real wrestling promotion. Given his love of Memphis already, Kaufman decided to pick out the town’s other King.

It’s a bit of a shame that most fans today only know Jerry Lawler as the goofy announcer on RAW. The fact is, for the better part of thirty years, Lawler was truly the man in Memphis wrestling, mostly the champion of the territory known for its great action. Keep in mind, that was 1983. Vince McMahon had only just acquired the WWF from his father and hadn’t quite begun his massive expansion so the old territory system was alive. However, wrestling still had that bias against it as being beneath more “intelligent” people. In fact, this was something Kaufman actually counted on to help out his act.

It began with him doing interviews where he would mock the Southern people and lifestyle, introducing himself as “Mr. Hollywood,” an overbearing jerk that these people should be grateful to be deigned with his presence. He would show up at the Memphis Coliseum managed by heel Jimmy Hart and wrestle women, acting more of a jerk than ever with his sweats over his thin body. It wasn’t long before he began challenging Lawler directly, Lawler refusing at first as he wanted more serious opponents but finally agreed to shut Kaufman up.

Their match took place at the Coliseum as Kaufman spent a few minutes running in and out of the ring, causing Lawler to get on the mic and ask “did you come here to fight or make an ass out of yourself?” Lawler then stood in the middle of the ring and bent over, inviting Kaufman to put him in a headlock. Kaufman did, working it over and laughing while Lawler held up a finger to the crowd, letting them know he was milking it. After a few moments, Lawler lifted Kaufman up and delivered a huge reverse suplex to the mat. He then picked up Kaufman and, with the crowd cheering wildly, gave him his piledriver finisher. As the piledriver had been outlawed at the time in Memphis, Lawler was disqualified but the fans didn’t care, especially when he gave Kaufman a second piledriver.

Kaufman was carted out on a stretcher to cheers and the incident made some major news in entertainment circles (again, keep in mind this was long before the current tabloid TV culture). Lawler showed up on SNL and other shows with a neck brace, trying to be calm about it. He and Lawler then made the now infamous dual appearance on Late Night with David Letterman where their calm discussion turned into a raging argument with Lawler slapping Kaufman right out of his chair. Minutes later, Kaufman returned and went on a wild tirade with the censor barely able to keep up with the needed bleeps.

The feud raged on for a while longer with Kaufman hooking up with Hart’s heels to attack Lawler now and then. When Kaufman got beaten up by Lawler, he and Hart had a huge argument with the masked Assassin attacking Andy. Kaufman went to Lawler, offering up cash to get him to be his partner. Lawler reluctantly agreed but of course, it was all a set up as all three men piled on to attack Lawler. However, not long afterward, Kaufman left professional wrestling behind for good. The exact reasons are unknown. It’s possible Kaufman simply wanted to get out of the joke before it got too tired. It’s also possible he may have been affected by the cancer that would end up cutting his life short in 1984. Whatever the case, the two went their separate ways although the story of their rivalry would continue for years.

Indeed, for an entire decade after Kaufman’s death, Lawler kept up how he had hated Kaufman making a joke of the business he loved so much, once commenting “I wouldn’t warm up to that guy if we were cremated together.” But in 1995, an NBC special celebrating Kaufman’s life had his manager finally come forth and tell the truth that Lawler and Kaufman had basically cooked the whole thing up and kept it quiet from everyone. Lawler had talked some doctor friends at the local hospital to make false records indicating Kaufman’s neck really had been injured in their match together and the two were actually friends. In his 2002 autobiography, Lawler went more in depth but did reveal that the Letterman incident wasn’t what he had planned. Supposedly, the two men would sing a song together in harmony but Kaufman instead came up with the cursing tirade. Lawler joked that he was half convinced Jerry Springer was part of the audience that night and said “hey, there’s a show in stuff like this.”

Another twist to the tale came in 1999 when Jim Carrey took on the role of Kaufman in the bio-pic Man in the Moon with director Milos Forman coming up with the wild idea of casting the various real-life people involved in Kaufman’s life as themselves, regardless of their ages now. So, Lawler was back in the ring facing Carrey and reports came that the two men scuffled on set with Lawler actually injuring Carrey during the shooting. It seemed that once again, Lawler was involved in a fake bit to add some attention to the film.

Twenty-five years later, the entire angle still remains one of the best mixes of reality and kayfabe the business has ever known. What made it work was that unlike so many other celebrities who get involved in wrestling, Kaufman admired it and appreciated it. More importantly, he was a true master of working people better than most wrestlers, using audience expectations both of wrestling fans and non to make the whole thing utterly believable. Yes, there was a downside of Lawler coming off as a jerk who couldn’t take a joke but in a way, faking the injury sold wrestling as “real” better than most matches of its time.

What makes it all so memorable is that you just don’t see so many people being played at once like this anymore. Even wrestlers thought the hate between them was real and that it was believed to be true for years afterward is a testament to how well both men worked it out. I still wish WWE would put a DVD on Lawler so he could show this great bit to modern-day fans and let them marvel at how well fans were sucked into the action. It also stands as the best use ever of a celebrity in wrestling because for once, it was the actor playing the audience instead of vice versa and played it very well. And the legacy Andy Kaufman leaves behind in it adds to his own mystique and how one man was able to be the biggest heel of his time with barely any ring experience at all. There have been a lot of stars involved in wrestling but no one has been able to be as big as Kaufman as the Man in the Moon’s star continues to shine.

Also around 411mania:

The Dusty Shelf reviews one of my favorite PPVs, Backlash 2000.

The Fink books this year’s Backlash.

The Seventh Dimension looks at Joe’s journey to the TNA title.

Evolution Schematic continues its look at WWE video games.

Wrestling Hubbard takes a shot at Puro.

Mike Chin talks the Importance of cage matches.

Can They Be Champ? Looks at the World Title situation.

The Shimmy continues to talk the Draft.

Wrestling Doctor examines the TNA Knockouts.

Tim does his Take on ECW.

Julian counts down the Top 10 Flair matches.

Thoughts From the Top Rope looks at the brand extension.

Piledriver Report gives a history of the King of the Ring.

Don’t forget Column of Honor, Triple Threat, Ask411, 3 R’s, Fact or Fiction and all the rest.