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Michael Kaufman:I know some of them. His most recognized Elvis jacket will be there, as well as his famous pink Foreign Man jacket that he would take off to become Elvis, and also the mock shirt he tore away. Andy was an author and we published three books for him after he died. Not only will the books be there—that's not a big deal—but you'll be able to see handwriting of Andy's. The World Intergender Wrestling Belt will be there. His 11th grade report card, which has a lot of red on it.How did he do?
One of his 11th grade teachers said to my mother, “The only reason I'm passing your son is I don't want to take a gamble at having him in my class again next year.” Also in the collection is a wonderful series of communications where Andy went to visit a girl who was dying. She was a fan of his, and when his plane was delayed in Chicago on its way to Washington, he drove out to Demotte, Indiana, to visit her. Word got out at the hospital and Andy wrestled three people. I have pictures. They were supposedly nurses and maybe one patient's mother. It's the only time he ever lost a match. He let them beat him. And then there's a letter from the mother, thanking Andy for doing that. Seven weeks after his visit, she died. That whole correspondence will be there. Andy never told anyone about that. I only knew about it because I went through the stuff.
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Yes. One time I told him not to let me know what was really going on, because when people asked me questions I didn't want to lie to them.Can you tell me about one of his gags that duped you?
A couple of months after I told him not to tell me anything anymore, he was on the TV show Fridays.
This is going to be about the infamous marijuana sketch, isn’t it?
It is. I was living in California at the time and was actually there that night. Andy may have smoked marijuana in high school, but when he got to college he started meditating and gave up everything. No cigarettes, no alcohol… totally clean. I could see him not wanting to be part of the marijuana scene. It was cheap humor and Fridays specialized in that, so I could see Andy saying “no” to it. So I'm sitting in my chair in the audience, thinking, Andy, I can't believe you picked nowto make a statement. You just ruined your whole career! Then, when the show was over, I went backstage to see how he was doing. I approached his dressing room with trepidation because I thought he was going to be very angry. I had to open a door to a bigger room before getting to his dressing room, and when I did there was music and a great mood going on. I thought, This is in poor taste. Andy's in there packing up like he's got no career and you guys are having a great time. That feeling lasted about four seconds, because I looked up and saw that Andy was one of the people celebrating. He was high-fiving people and dancing around. You didn't see Andy dancing on television too much, but he was that night. I'm embarrassed to say that he got me that night. It was phenomenal.
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Let me tell you. We were brothers, so how I feel about something might be very similar to the way he felt… in fact, I think it is. I can't watch much stand-up comedy. I can appreciate a lot of it, I can appreciate the art in how people bring you up and down, but if you go to a comedy club it’s a lot of the same stuff, and too much work for the payoff. Andy didn't go for the laughter. He just wanted you to participate. He didn't care if you were angry, sad, laughing… he just wanted you to feel something as opposed to politely applauding at a Broadway show at the right moments. That might be the answer for why Andy didn't want to be called a comedian. He would have been like everybody else. This way, he could be different. Also, it may have been a protective device, so that if you didn't laugh he could say, “Well, I wasn't trying to make you laugh. I said I wasn't a comedian.”

That's a great question. I have an unpublished book on Andy that would shed some light on that. Aside from that, you get a glimpse of his other side in Andy Kaufman's Comedy Salute, and I think when you hear about him visiting the girl who was dying you see another side of Andy. As for the show, I'm going to be at the gallery three or four times. My sister from Chicago is going to be there for two days. Andy's daughter, who he never knew, will be there. Then you have people like Bob Zmuda and Lynn Margulies, who are also going. I don't know what side's going to come out there… I hope Lynn will be able to give all the sides. She saw the creative, but she'll be able to show the part of him that was a caring person as well.
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That is correct. I don't mind telling the truth. I was the first one to play Tony Clifton, other than Andy. It was at Huntington Hartford in California, and again at Carnegie Hall in New York. Andy had been talking about franchising Tony Clifton before he died. He was going to have one in every state.That would have been fantastic. Do you have any insight into how Andy developed his characters?
Oh, gosh. A lot of it came from his upbringing. My sister might know more about Foreign Man, because he did that with her. Andy watched a lot of Spanish TV. He didn't know any Spanish, but he liked listening to it, so that's where Foreign Man came from. In my book I wrote that, to some degree, by being so bad with Foreign Man, I think Andy figured if you didn't like it he could always say, “Well, I wasn't trying.” As courageous as he was by playing Foreign Man, it was a protective device.He would do impersonations as Foreign Man too, right? And then break into a great Elvis impersonation?
Right. That's where he had to come through. He had to pull through with Elvis. If he didn't, what was the rest of it for? Andy was Elvis's favorite, by the way. He had Andy on video. I think Andy said to me that the reason Elvis liked him the best was because Andy was the only one who did it with a sense of humor.Yeah, I actually interviewed four Elvis impersonators for our January issue. They take themselves very seriously.
They showed up at Andy's funeral! The Elvis fan club. It wasn't just in the movie—that was in real life.
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A brother may be biased, but I really think he gave permission for a lot of people—whether it be Sacha Baron Cohen, Tom Green, Ashton Kutcher with Punk'd, Johnny Knoxville—to do what they do. I heard Pee Wee Herman asked Andy if it was OK to do the Pee Wee Playhouse. That is hearsay, it was told to me by someone else, but certainly he was an influence there.

Perhaps Andy's originality was that he wasn't so much influenced. That said, perhaps the greatest influence was his paternal grandfather, Paul. Paul was the ham. As an example, Paul, a successful businessman, arranged for Andy's bar mitzvah reception to be held at Paul's upper-class Fresh Meadows Country Club on January 13, 1962. It was Grandpa Paul, and not Andy's friends, who went into the men's locker room and mixed up all the golf shoes. He unpaired them so there were no matching pairs.Paul would also buy the latest magic tricks and surprise—or rather infuriate—his wife, Grandma Lillie, by demonstrating the tricks at the dinner table in front of company. Like the moving plates: Grandpa would squeeze one end in his hand, forcing air through the tube leading under the plates, which would move and lift.
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