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Andy Kaufman Revealed!: Best Friend Tells All
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 792.7028092
EAN: 9780316681230
ISBN: 0316681237
Label: Little Brown and Company
Manufacturer: Little Brown and Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 306
Publication Date: 1999-09
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Studio: Little Brown and Company
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Editorial Review:
American comedian Andy Kaufman (1949-1984) was a performer like no other--a rule-breaking iconoclast who blurred the line between performance art and comedy, at times between life and art itself. Misunderstood by the public at large during his lifetime, and embraced by a cult of fans that has consistently grown since his premature death from cancer, Kaufman is the perfect counter-cultural martyr, ripe for a Gap khakis ad. Like Lenny Bruce before him, Kaufman chafed at the reigns of comedy; he didn't always want to make people laugh, in fact he wished to make them uncomfortable. One might consider those notorious French bad-boy playwrights Alfred Jarry and Antonin Artaud (who pushed the envelope of good taste and thoroughly enjoyed confusing their audiences) to be Kaufman's spiritual predecessors, though this might be taking things too seriously. His most well-known routines--the inept stand-up comedian "foreign man," the basis for the character Latka Gravas on the hit sitcom "Taxi"; the grizzled, professional lounge lizard Tony Clifton; and the reigning world champion of inter-gender wrestling--all hinged on making the crowd squirm. Life was a show for Kaufman, who began staging elaborate shows for friends and family at the age of 7; everything was a put-on and yet totally, dead-on serious.
Judging by Bob Zmuda's book (released in anticipation of a biographical movie starring Jim Carrey), Kaufman wasn't the easiest guy to be a best friend to. But, as Zmuda tells things, he rose to the challenge--letting Kaufman confide that he had a daughter he'd never seen, keeping his mouth shut at the appropriate times, and otherwise fulfilling best-friend duties with aplomb. Andy Kaufman got the friend he deserved in his lifetime, but this is not the biography he deserves; it is written in a well-meaning though hackneyed and hard-to-digest style. Simple points are made again and again, as if the two(!) authors were attempting to fuse a poorly-written college essay with a USA Today article. And Mr. Zmuda makes the mistake of assuming that his own history will be of much interest to the reader, who is ostensibly reading a tell-all about Kaufman, not his best friend. There are tremendous anecdotes here; about half the book is filled with glorious tales of artful mischief, hijinks, pranks, and funny stuff that Zmuda and Kaufman pulled on friends, crowds, and strangers. Fans will undoubtedly want to pick this one up, while those with a more casual interest are cautioned to perhaps look elsewhere for a less clumsily written tome. --Mike McGonigal
Best known for his sweet-natured character Latka on Taxi, Andy Kaufman was the most influential comic of the generation that produced David Letterman, John Belushi, and Robin Williams. A regular on the early days of Saturday Night Live (where he regularly disrupted planned skits), Kaufman quickly became known for his idiosyncratic roles and for performances that crossed the boundaries of comedy, challenging expectations and shocking audiences. Kaufmans death from lung cancer at age 35 (hed never smoked) stunned his fans and the comic community that had come to look to him as its lightning rod and standard bearer. Bob Zmuda, Kaufmans closest friend, producer, writer, and straight man, breaks his twenty-year silence about Kaufman and unmasks the man he knew better than anyone. He chronicles Kaufmans meteoric rise, the development of his extraordinary personas, the private man behind the driven actor and comedian, and answers the question most often asked: Did Andy Kaufman fake his own death? A movie about Kaufman starring Jim Carrey, directed by Milos Forman, and co-executive produced by author Bob Zmuda and Danny DeVitos Jersey Films, is scheduled for national release in fall 1999.
Kaufman's closest friend breaks his 20-year silence about the star and unmasks the man whom he knew better than anyone, chronicling Kaufman's meteoric rise, the development of his extraordinary personas, and the private man behind the driven comedian.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Excellent Read!
Nicely written book about Andy Kaufman and Bob Zmuda. For a diehard fan of Kaufman's...it's an excellent read!
I would recommend this book to my friends.
Rating:  - Great companion piece to "Lost In The Funhouse"
This book should be read along with "Lost In The Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman" by Bill Zehme for a more complete view of Andy.
"...Revealed!" is a great memoir from Andy's closest collaborator, Bob Zmuda's anecdotes are incredibly entertaining. The thing is though they are just anecdotes, a collection of stories, this is not a flowing narrative, it's just fun. You really could open up to any page and be entertained.
When it comes to Andy's life before ... Read More
Rating: - I agree: Mr. X himself is worth your time
If "Man on the Moon," which depicted the trite TV reruns of Kaufman's wrestling shows bored you, you should read this book. Milos Foreman probably believed that Zmuda's insights were unappealing to mass movie audiences... which is why his film failed.
...and I must write that I have read biographies about Napoleon Bonaparte, Benjamin Franklin, Friedrich Nietzsche, etc... but no one fascinates me quite as much as "Mr. X." When I read Zmuda's descriptions about him, I laughed so hard that ... Read More
Rating: - A Must-Read!
Andy Kaufman was a fascinating man who proved to be more complex than any of his maddening performances. Now, Andy's best friend and confidant ever, has given us a first-hand account of what Andy was really like and how he pulled off his greatest skits. Zmuda traces out Andy's career, from when he first started playing local comedy clubs, up to the appearance of Tony Clifton a year after Andy's death, and provides plenty of laughs as he describes how fearlessly Andy toyed with his audiences.
If ... Read More
Rating: - Unsung Hero
I first learned of Andy Kaufman after seeing Man on the Moon, featuring Jim Carrey starring as the late "song and dance man." I use the term song and dance man, because Kaufman never thought of himself as a comedian, he was only a song and dance man - an entertainer. This book provides an in-depth look into the mind of Andy Kaufman through his best friend and producer, Bob Zmuda. I never thought I would be so inspired by this book. The way that Andy saw the world was so different that he influenced ... Read More
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