FADED MEMORIES & FALLEN STARS - REMEMBERING ANDY KAUFMAN

[Brian Damage]

He did not refer to himself as a comedian, but rather as a 'song-&-dance man'. Go figure, since his subtle perfomances reached out to many as pure comedy.






Andy was born in New York City & grew up in a middle class Jewish family in Great Neck, Long Island, New York. He started his career at the age of 9 & as soon as able began performing stand-up comedy at various small clubs along the East Coast.




He also learned Transcendental Meditation & used TM to help build confidence so he could perform. Andy meditated & performed yoga up to 3 hrs. a day. He also trained as a teacher in TM in Majorca, Spain. It was reported that Andy never smoked, nor drank alcohol regularly, & was a vegetarian.



In 1983 at a Thanksgiving dinner, his family noticed him coughing a lot & Andy soon consulted with a Doctor & was diagnosed with a rare type of lung cancer.

It took a toll upon his physic & Andy became gaunt looking. He tried to cure himself, since his Doctor's prognosis was hopeless. He used natural medicines & did also after a time receive palliative radiotherapy, but the cancer had spread to rapidly from his lungs to his brain.

He later received 'psychic surgery' performed in Baguio, Philippines in March 1984. Andy succumbed to his disease May 16th, 1984 & died of kidney failure, caused by metastasized large cell carcinoma. He was later buried in Elmont, New York & was only 35 years old.




Since he had kept much of his illness from the public, his fans doubted his death & thought it was a staged stunt, since Andy had started a rumor of his faked death plans well before as a 'joke' on society.

But soon he & his fans acquitted to the pure facts of his demise, & he could not escape the disease.






Andy's first major character known was 'Foreign Man', who claimed to be from Caspiar which was a make believe island in the Caspian Sea. He would appear on stage to play a recording of the theme from 'Mighty Mouse' & lip synch one line

.... HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAY ...

then go on to tell a few jokes & perform a number of impersonations of Archie Bunker, Richard Nixon. SNL featured Andy Oct. 11th, 1975.

In his performances he would often speak in a fake accent & would imitate other well known people still in the same fake accent! Which funny by itself was always ended with a 'T'ank you veddy much'.




Leaving his best acts for last, Andy would announce 'And now I would like to imitate the Elvis Presley' ... he would turn around, take off his jacket, slick his hair back, & rivet into an Elvis Presley impersonation that was so good that Presley himself described it as his favorite.

Hitting his fans with this performance he would then add ... 'T'ank you veddy much' .... which became a trademark of Andy's comedy.




Much more can be written since Andy's repertoire was personified by the characters such as Latka the Taxi Driver & Tony Clifton the Lounge Singer.

He also had many 'vague' comedy scenes & kept his own personal character in the middle of all his roles. Hence, the neck brace that he used. Andy's personal biod are indeed interesting & controversial at the same time.

A unique talent that copied from no one really, but copied everyone at the same time. Andy, our hats off to you!

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