believe, Andy made his sister a mem-
ber of the audience.
Before Kaufman began on his path
to professional success, he took a walk
on the wild side. It was the turbulent
'60s and Andy was constantly party-
ing; he took LSD, drank and did
drugs," says Zmuda. "But then he
began practicing Transcendental
Meditation (TM), and that commit-
ment taught him to clean up his life.
He never smoked or did drugs after
that.
"It's ironic that he died of lung can-
cer, because as long as I knew him, he
wouldn't even be in a room with
someone who smoked."
Although Kaufman embraced
Transcendental Meditation, he still
considered himself an observant Jew.
"Andy grew up in a. Jewish home, had
a bar mitzvah and was a nice Jewish
boy," says Zmuda. "Every year when
the most important Jewish holidays
rolled around, he would participate,
no matter how busy he was. For the
High Holidays and Passover, he would
make sure to be on the East Coast so
he could celebrate with his folks."
When Kaufman got off drugs, he
enrolled at a community college in
Boston to study film and television.
According to Zmuda, one day a stu-
dent approached Kaufman about
entering the campus talent show. With
the serenity and confidence that TM
had brought him, he accepted, and
wound up performing some of his
childhood routines.
"The crowd's extraordinary reac-
tion, coupled with his new mind-set
from TM, proved to Andy that his
fears were no longer part of his lug-
gage," Zmuda writes in his book. "So
he set them down and never looked
back."
Around that time, Kaufman's girl-
friend Gloria became pregnant with
his child. Not ready for parenthood,
they put the baby girl up for adop-
tion. When the daughter, Maria, came
of age, she decided to seek out her
biological parents. Although Andy had
passed away, Maria developed a rela-
tionship with the Kaufman family. In
Man on the Moon, Maria's daughter
(Andy's granddaughter) plays Andy's
sister as a young girl.
U
pon finishing college, Andy
Kaufman headed for New
York City to try out his
routines. Creating his own
bizarre brand of humor, he began as
an improvisational stand-up comedian
at New York clubs like The Improv
and Catch a Rising Star.
With a fascination for Elvis, he did
an uncanny impersonation of the
King of Rock 'n' Roll. And, as a mas-
ter of foreign accents, Kaufman often-
times cast himself as an oddball, refus-
ing to break out of character.
"The first time I met Andy he was
performing on stage, speaking with a
thick foreign accent," recalls Zmuda.
"Later that evening, while I was trying
to figure out what country he was
from, I saw him loading props into his
car.
"When he spotted me, he asked in
a thick Russian-like accent if I would
help him. He said he had hurt his
back. I agreed and wound up carrying
all of his very heavy equipment. 'Dank
you veddy much,' he said when I was
through. I said, 'You're welcome.'
Then Andy yelled, 'Sucker!' with an
American accent and jumped in his
car and drove away. I actually thought
it was hysterical and was anxious to
get to know him. Before long, we
),
became close friends.
In 1975, Kaufman's offbeat humor
brought him into the national spot-
light after his television debut on the
first-ever episode of Saturday Night
Live, where he sang the "Mighty
Mouse" theme. A hit with the audi-
ence, he wound up with more than a
dozen appearances on SNL.
The instant fame allowed him to
move to Los Angeles, where his career
continued to flourish. He appeared on
television with Red Foxx, Dick Van
Dyke, David Letterman and Johnny
Carson. He also hosted Andy's
Funhouse TV Special and sold out at
Carnegie Hall.
Perhaps his most memorable role
was that of Latka Gravas, on the sit- -
com Taxi, where he portrayed the
weird immigrant mechanic whose bro-
ken English had audiences asking for
more.
Despite his fame and fortune,
Kaufman continued to push audiences
to the limit, leaving them squirming
in their seats. According to a 1998
Esquire magazine article, Kaufman was
once quoted as saying, "I want people
to laugh from the gut, be sad from the
gut or get angry from the gut." He
had them doing all three.
During one concert he read aloud
with a British accent from The Great
Gatsby; after an appearance at
Carnegie Hall, Kaufman hired 20
buses and took a large portion of the
audience out for milk and cookies;
during an L.A. performance, he did
his laundry on stage using a portable
r*:
Convincee4 as the saying goes, that there really aren't more
than six degrees of separation in this world, a writer
reports on he r personal connection to "Man on the Moon."
n the film Man on the Moon,
Courtney Love plays the lead
role of Lynn Margulies, Andy
ICaufman's girlfriend. But had
it not been for the film My Breakfist
With 131assie, produced by my sister,
Linda Burdick Margulies (profes-
sionally known as Linda Lautrec),
Lynn Margulies probably never
would have met Andy Kaufman.
It was back in 1982, when Linda,
advantages of filing your teeth and
Blassie's affinity for shopping at
hardware stores.
Keeping the skeleton cast within
the family, Linda, along with her hus-
band, Martin Margulies (whose
showbiz name is Johnny Legend),
invited their siblings to be in the film.
Lynn Margulies, Martin's sis-
ter, played the female trying to pick-
up the star, while Laura Burdick
Sherman, Linda's twin
inter, played a dis-
gruntled fan. The rest
of the cast, with bit
Left:
Lynn Margulies
with Andy
1Caufman
in 1982.
living in Los Angeles,
had the idea to make a
low-budget film star-
ring Andy Kaufman
and champion wrestler Fred Blassie.
Spoofing the hit film My Dinner
With Andre, Linda paired Kaufman,
a diehard wrestling fan, with WSW
champ Blassie. In the space of only
one afternoon, they shot My
Breakfast With 131assie in Sarnbo's
restaurant in L.A.
In the 60-minute film, Kaufman
and.Blassie, while eating breakfast,
discuss such weighty issues as the
intricacies of perional hygiene, the
parts, included Kau man's
Bob Zmuda, and Linda
Kaufman's personal assis t
also provided the bac
music. (Alas, this writ
in Ann Arbor and never had her
chance at film stardom.)
"Andy was preoccupied with the
rule of threes in comedy — where
something had to come up three
MAN ON THE MOON on
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1999
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