Biography:
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", in 1978. He was in the film "Heartbleeps" with co-star
Bernadette Peters, in which he played a romantic robot.
He died of lung cancer 6/16/1984 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 12/22/1999 a movie based on his life,
opened, 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 Graham 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 canceled. 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.
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Andy Kaufman links:
- StarIQ.com has a fascinating article by Madalyn
Hillis-Dineen comparing the charts of Jim Carrey and Andy
Kaufman. She makes a convincing argument that he was
"born" for the part considering all the overlaps
between their two charts – including sharing the same
birthday. While you are there, check out the rest of this up
and coming astrology portal site that combines newsy articles
with astrological input: http://www.stariq.com/pagetemplate/article.asp?pageid=402
Where do you want to go now?
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