Lynne Margulies

No, I live up on the Oregon coast. Oh, really? I'm from here.

That was my most recent running away. I grew up in San Fernando.

So you had to get away pretty... I got away early and then came back, then went away, then came back. I lived in San Francisco for 15 years. Really?

Zuerst habe ich in Noe Valley angefangen. Ja, das ist toll.

Ich lebte auf 24th Street über dem Wells Fargo. Okay, ja. Welche Jahre waren das? Das war, naja, das war, als Andy lebte. Es war. Also das war 80, ich bin 1981, 1982, 1983, ja.

Including me, because I'm a filmmaker. Everyone who made something about Andy, it was his performances. Like one performance after another. But what Alex wanted to do when I met him, he wanted to figure out what was underneath it all.

Oh, what a storyteller, eh?

And me.

Well, yeah, there's Clifton and there's Clifton.

And I was going to say, when someone does Clifton, they change. Of course. Like Jim Carrey changed.

I was on the film the whole time. And yeah, you become Clifton and you do stuff you would never do.

Well, he actually made us promise, me and Bob both. I mean, he actually did. Bob says... But this is before he was sick. Oh, right, right, right.

Which song is it?

Oh, yeah, and she mentions Andy. Yeah, that's an existing song.

I heard that back in the 90s.

Yeah.

It's before either of them were famous.

He was, because that's the only place he could do that stuff. Where else would he do it? Out on the streets, which he did.

Right.

Oh Gott, I was a baby. I was 27 when he died. And we were just together for two years. Right. I met him in 82, right after he got the neck brace. Breakfast with Blassie was shot just after the David Letterman show, where he got slapped.

And I was in Breakfast with Blassie. I'm the one that he meets. Right, you talked to him.

My brother is Johnny Legend. Oh, okay. But left to my own devices. I wouldn't watch TV that much.

Well, no, what happened is they put us in an empty room.

And so we, myself, Linda Latrek, who was the co-producer, her sister and Andy's assistant Linda. Yeah. They just put us behind them.

At the table behind them. And they said, just eat. Just eat.

And then I got sucked in. They sucked me in, you know, to the scene. And I didn't know who Andy was. I knew Fred. I've known Fred since I was six.

Because my brother used to take me to the Olympic Auditorium with him when I was six years old.

Yeah. So Fred, Freddy, I'd known almost all my life. But who's that? I don't know who Andy Kaufman is.

Everyone wants to assign stuff like that to Andy. He just loved wrestling. I mean, period. He just loved wrestling. He loved the bad guy, good guy stuff.

No, you can't. But he wasn't thinking of that. I know. At the end of his career, when no one would hire him anymore, because of all of his shenanigans, he said, well, maybe I'll just be a wrestling manager now.

Yeah, he loved, I mean, if you think about it, everything he did was wrestling. His entire career. It was like, you're one thing, then you're another. You're a good guy, then you're a bad guy. You know, throw everyone for a loop. If you look at all of his stuff he did, it's all wrestling.

Any reaction was good. Oh, he loved it. The madder people got at him, the happier he was.

To not care.

Yeah.

Yeah. And he just soaked it up. He loved it.

I know. Have you seen back the first time Trump was in office, someone put out a picture of him unzipping himself and Andy was stepping out.

That was the first time.

Oh, yeah. Andy, when he wasn't doing stuff, which he was a lot, just at home.

No, not at the restaurant, but out in public, on the streets. He would suddenly start doing stuff. He'd start strangling me, you know, stuff like that. But at home, he was just a quiet, just normal, intelligent, quiet person.

Not really. No. I mean, he never told jokes or anything. He was not funny. He was just a guy.

No, he was just really intelligent. Highly intelligent.

He was, I think, eight years older than me.

Seven years older than me.

Ja, und das ist das Ding. Ich war sehr wie er. Ich konnte nichts über berühmte Leute sagen. Ich wusste nicht, was ich will. Es ist nur so, dass er und ich wirklich zusammen waren. Und ich flog einfach durch das Leben. Ich hatte keine Ambitionen. Ich wollte keine Schauspielerin werden. Ich wollte nicht das oder das werden.

No, but my brother was Johnny Legend. My dad was a doctor, my mom was a nurse. Out in the valley? Out in the valley in San Fernando. Orange Grove Avenue. So I was just floating along. So it was perfect.

57.

I guess so.

I met him in 82, yeah. In the 70s, yeah, we used to go to Hollywood Boulevard and hang out and stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah. And crowded.

I mean, Hollywood Boulevard was nuts on the weekends.

He was still doing taxi.

Yep, he was still on taxi.

Yeah, I remember one time we were sitting in his, we were meditating in his dressing room. And they were out there rehearsing. And what's his name?

No, no, no, no, no, no. The guy who's in my film. I'm getting old and I lose things. Oh yeah, me too. I have a lacuna brain now. No, the boxer.

Yeah, he was pounding on the door. Andy, get your ass out here, get it. And I opened my eyes and Andy's just sitting there with this little smile on his face, you know.

Oh, I know. They all hate, I mean, Danny didn't hate him, but, and Mary Lou.

Judd hated him.

Yeah, yeah. I worked with him. Judd hated him. I know, I watched your show.

Yes, he did. Except for certain things like, I know there was like people he would visit in the hospital. He would go visit people in the hospital every now and again.

No, people he knew. Like some woman was in the hospital and he'd go visit her when he was in town. No, he really didn't. He was in his own. It was Andy's world. It was his world.

Yes, exactly.

Oh, sie haben es gemacht.

Something about silence, yeah. It all comes down to silence.

Yes.

Yes.

I know. Andy, at the end of his life, they had cards printed up. He was going to do a tour called On Creating Reality.

I think he was going to fill it with a lot of mumbo jumbo. Oh, yeah. You know, but still. Yeah. Because all of us, everyone out in the world are all trying to put a name to what he did, put a reason to what he did, and figure out what he did. And he just laughed at that, because he just did what he did, because it was fun. So he was going to do this tour called On Creating Reality.

Und dann die Wille, es durchzusehen. Ja.

But a lot of them do. That's the thing. A lot of them do. Especially if they do stuff like Andy did. They can't stand the backlash. They have to let on. Doesn't everyone finally explain what they're doing or why they're doing it?

Yeah.

He thought of himself more as vaudeville. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. Not comedy. He never thought of himself having to do with comedy. It was vaudeville.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he was relieved. He really hated doing Taxi.

He felt like he was sold out. Sold out foreign man and made it commercial. But on the other hand, it made him money and it made him able to do all the other things he did because he was famous. So he could do all these things and be on shows and do stuff in the streets and stuff because he was famous because of Taxi.

Ja, du warst mit ihm.

Ja, ich weiß.

That's when it started being, well, he was still on Letterman.

Letterman loved him. Letterman loved Andy. At the time, I think, Andy had been the guest more times than anyone else.

Yes, yes. Were you there? Yeah, yeah. In fact, we met them at Times Square. We went to Times Square.

They were at an arcade playing games.

And Andy just started talking to them. I mean... Yeah, and said, hey, you want to be on Letterman with me?

They might have known who he was.

Not that day. Not that day. No, he got, you know, he got their phone numbers and stuff and then got them together to go on Letterman and say they were his adopted sons.

Right. Do it badly. Yeah, that was like, he told one of the kids to say that.

It was pretty bad.

And he'd done all the wrestling.

Yeah, he'd done all the wrestling women. He was still wrestling in Memphis. No one knew he was doing the wrestling in Memphis. Because if you think about it, cable wasn't big at that time. And wrestling was all over the place. Now, but not back then. No one knew he was going to Memphis and doing all the wrestling. And wrestling guys? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. But after the neck brace thing, after the head, head, the. He kept going back because he wanted to get revenge. And that's what no one knew about. That's what's in I'm from Hollywood, is him going back to get revenge on Lawler. And he went over and over and over and over again.

Yeah, that was in April 5th of 1982. Did he really hurt his neck? Sort of. Not as bad. You know, he didn't need to keep wearing that neck brace until it was like filthy and falling apart.

He was committed to it. Yeah. Yeah.

He never cashed. They did pay him, but he never cashed a single check.

Yeah. He just went. So that's what was going on all through 83, basically, was him going to Memphis and wrestling.

He was. Oh, he absolutely was.

Absolutely. He wouldn't have done it. It was fun. He was just having fun.

Oh, taxi.

Well, there was that one time Tony got fired.

Yeah, they couldn't get rid of him. He was holding them hostage. He was, actually. Yeah, they couldn't get rid of him. He was the most popular person on the show, I think.

But he wasn't doing it.

When we look at it.

Exactly.

Completely. And then on all the other shows, like on Fridays when he got in the fight with Michael Richards.

Yeah, and he throws the water on him. And Letterman, where he gets slapped. Sorry. And what's the other one he screwed up? There was another one. I can't remember. But anyway, yeah. And you would think. He was doing it on purpose to sabotage his career, but he was just doing wrestling.

Hahaha.

Oh, it's amazing, isn't it?

That was perfect.

Yeah. She really did die. Yeah.

Well, you want to stay true to Andy's. A bit, right? Yeah. But then he let her come back up with, you know, he put on the Indian feathers and came out. She came back to life.

No. It was all a bit.

Oh yeah, I always went.

Oh yeah.

They hated him. In fact, he would stay in his dressing room until everyone was gone and I would have to go out and make sure Lawler had left, for one thing. I'd have to see Lawler get in his car and drive away before Andy would come out of his dressing room.

And he was just, you know.

Being dramatic.

It goes on until Andy got cancer at the end of 83. You know, he kept going back, going back. In fact, yeah, there's some video when he's coughing, you know, and I'm like, oh my God, you can see him coughing.

No, L.A., in December, 83.

Yeah, he went in for his cough to see why he was coughing all the time.

I know, and then he got cancer. And then what he wanted to do was go on Letterman and say he got cancer for Christmas.

I don't know why that didn't happen. He even got a phone line put in his apartment and had his name on it in the phone book so people could call him.

Because he was going to go on Letterman and announce his phone number and say he got cancer for Christmas.

Yeah.

No, it was just fun.

I swear to God, it was just, I mean, he didn't think these through like everyone else does.

I know.

I know.

Seems like it, doesn't it?

He just thought it would be funny to announce his phone number on David Letterman and then have it actually be a real phone that you could call. Yeah, well, he had a machine hooked up to it. I don't know if he was ever actually going to answer it. Yeah, he got one call that someone actually found his number and called.

Just out of curiosity, yeah.

Beziehungsweise seine Familie. Sie hassen es.

Genau.

Yeah. Well, you know, you do have this desire somehow to interpret and pathologize. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm.

No, not really. Even with me. He would do it like I would go over and make him put his arm around me and I'd lean on him. He'd go, oh, there, there. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like he was pretending. Yeah.

Das ist interessant.

Das und ja, und sein Vater, ich denke, du weißt, Bob und ich haben darüber gesprochen. Sein Vater war, ich denke, er hatte wahrscheinlich PTSD aus der 2. Weltkriege und er schrie viel.

Und ich denke, das ist das, was Andy in seinen Raum gebracht hat.

Genau.

Und ich denke, das ist vielleicht, warum er so viel Wettbewerb ließ, weil die Bösen ein Akt waren. Es war nicht wirklich, während es im Leben wirklich war, aber im Rennen war es nicht wirklich.

Ja.

Ich würde es so denken. Ja. Wahrscheinlich. Ja. Ja.

Nun, Gott, es ist so schnell passiert. Er wurde im Dezember diagnostiziert und er ist im Mai gestorben. And so it was just going to the doctors. They talked him into doing radiation, which he didn't want to do. And then some friend of his told him about the faith healers in the Philippines. And Andy just went, okay, that sounds good.

And off we went to the Philippines for six weeks to see the faith healers there.

Yeah, yeah. He believed, he was kind of magical thinking, you know. It's like, he never thought cancer would kill him. He just, oh, I've got cancer now, I'll have to get rid of it, basically was his.

Yeah.

Really fast. Yeah. I don't know what the five stages are, but he never got angry. Yeah, I think it's denial.

Yeah, he did accepted it towards the end.

Yeah, although he never would say I'm dying, but I think he knew he was dying.

Oh, Bud liebte ihn. Und er machte eine Party nach dem Screening. Und das war der letzte Mal, dass er uns gesehen hat. Weil das war der Tag oder zwei, bevor wir in die Philippinen gingen.

Yeah, he threw a party for him at the improv, impromptu. Oh, yeah? Just said, everyone come to the improv.

Oh, he loved Andy like a son. Yeah, yeah. He was really broken up.

Yeah, I don't know how Bud figured out, because Andy wouldn't have told him. Ja. Ja. Ja. Ja.

Und das ist es, was Taxi für ihn gemacht hat. Er wurde wirklich groß. Er war früher auf Shows, aber er war nicht so bekannt. Ja. Aber dann kam er auf Taxi und er war riesig.

Right?

Oh yeah, because that's what Andy was like.

Right. Anyone else would have been suing Andy for stealing his persona. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicht viele. Greg Sutton aus der Kindheit. Ich meine, Andy war wie ich. Wir sind beide das Gleiche. Wir sind nicht wirklich komfortabel mit Menschen. Ja. Ja.

Bob.

No, George loved him. George always loved Andy, no matter what. I mean, Andy knew a lot of people, but he didn't hang out with people. I mean, he had me. The only reason that he and I managed to get together, I think, is because Bob was off doing DC Cab. He wrote DC Cab, and he was in it. So Bob was gone, and Andy was left without a friend, and then he met me. Yeah.

And I took Bob's place for a while because, you know.

No.

No, not at all.

He just accepted it. I mean, yeah, he just accepted it. I mean, things happen and that's how it goes, you know?

The only thing, he was very disappointed. He was very disappointed in... What's his name from Saturday Night Live? Not Lorne Michaels, the other guy. The original guy.

Ebersol. Because he felt that he betrayed him. When they kicked him off, they did the vote. Yeah. And Ebersol figured he'd be kicked off as a joke. But then Andy was supposed to come back. He was supposed to come back in disguise. Like, ha, ha, ha, I snuck back in. But Ebersol didn't let him back on.

So he was really hurt by that.

It was all supposed to be an act. He'd get kicked off and then he'd sneak back on. And then Ebersole betrayed him. And he really felt betrayed. I mean, that was the one. He was hurt. Und er wurde auch von dem Meditation-Movement verletzt, weil sie ihn aus dem Wrestling-Movement auslösen wollten. Sie würden ihn nicht auf die Kursen lassen. Er liebte es, auf die Kursen zu gehen, die sie hatten.

Und sie würden ihn nicht lassen.

Not as much in later years, but he would go to the courses. And then he signed up for one and they wouldn't let him do it.

Yeah, and he was really hurt by that. Because TM was his life.

Zwei Tage? Oh Gott. Egal was. Egal was. Und er hatte eine lange Meditation und er würde schlafen. Und wenn er schlafen würde, würde er starten. Also würde er für drei, vier Stunden meditieren. Wirklich? Ja.

Yeah, and no matter what, if we were in New York Times Square, we'd go to a movie theater so he could meditate or he'd get a hotel room so he could meditate.

I've been on it since 2006. What are you on? Paxil.

Yeah.

Well, when you have anxiety, it's a medical condition. Well, good. I'm working on accepting that. I don't think all the meditation in the world can get rid of... It's like meditating to get rid of your heart disease.

Yeah. No, it's horrible.

I hate anxiety.

I did too, all my life.

So, Andy didn't make you anxious? Not at all. I was having fun.

Yeah, but I couldn't, I couldn't, he wanted me to perform with him. But because of my anxiety disorder, I couldn't do anything in public at the time.

Just, well, first of all, he wanted me, I would say things, he'd go, you're funny, you should get up there. Yeah, yeah. And I can't, I can't, you know.

Ja, er wollte, dass ich aufstehe. Und ich war so, nein, ich kann das nicht. Er wollte mich, wie er mich ursprünglich wollte, um sein Chicago-Show zu schreiben. Und auch das, ich war zu, wie ich? Ich? So hat er Elaine Boosler eingeladen, um das zu machen. Ich war einfach zu anstrengend. Also wart ihr da, als er gestorben ist? Ja. Ja. Ja.

I was holding his foot because his family were up holding his hands. And so Linda Mitchell and I were at the base of the bed, each holding a foot.

It was. It was.

No. No, he was just tired at the end. He was just tired. You know, he was just sleeping most of the time.

Yes, yes.

The promises?

Well, one, like I said, we had started I'm from Hollywood. Yeah. And that's about his wrestling in Memphis.

He, I mean, because that was his... That was the height of his career, as far as he was concerned. I mean, that was it.

Absolutely. So he made me promise to finish it. And boy, was that hard.

Because I had to work on it right after he died.

Oh my God, it was so hard. But I finished it. And the other thing he made me promise, in front of George Shapiro, he said, George, I want Lynn to get everything I ever did out into the world. You know? Und er hat gesagt, er hat versprochen, sie zu helfen. Und dann hat George das leichter vergessen, als ich es versucht habe.

Nachdem ich aus Hollywood bin, bin ich zu George gekommen und habe gesagt, okay, jetzt bin ich bereit, die restlichen Sachen zu machen.

Oh, just like find everything he ever did and either put it out as a compilation, maybe do a movie of all of his work, you know. And George just kind of said, well, I helped you do I'm from Hollywood. That's enough.

Well, then what I did was I took, I used to sell the stuff online. DVDs that I just made. I sold them on eBay because Andy asked me to do it. So I was putting the stuff out there. I did two DVDs that I called the Kauffman Archives. And I just put clips from all his different shows on them.

Nope, just shows.

Yeah, I mean, you know, 20 bucks a piece.

I found a couple, yeah. They're so cute, because I also, I typed up a thing about all of them, and I signed it, and I put that inside the DVD case.

No, there have been, like Bob and I did an A&E biography on him.

And a couple people have just done little private things that they've put out, but no. This is the first one. The first documentary that actually delves into who he was and why he did it. Rather than just present like his performances.

And Bob. Yeah.

The epitome, the height, the apex of his career.

You were there for that. Absolutely.

Oh, well, yeah, now it is. His father wasn't as... Ja, sieh, I went through all these years thinking, well, I promised Andy I would do this, and that's why I was putting stuff out, putting stuff out. And then his dad died, and his brother took over, and his brother has put the kibosh on everyone doing stuff. Oh, really?

Yeah, his father didn't.

Back when Andy had all of his stuff, after Taxi ended, he moved out of his house in the Hollywood Hills. And he put all his stuff in storage. And after he died, his dad just called Linda Mitchell, his assistant, and said, get rid of everything. So Linda called me and I said, send it to my mom's garage. I had her send it all to me. Yeah, because his dad was just like, get rid of it.

Well, his dad still had all the stuff in Andy's childhood room at the house.

I know. They just left his room. We used to go stay in it when we were there. Really? A little twin bed.

Yeah.

Well, it was his room and he would come back and stay there.

Yeah, just all his stuff. Yeah.

Ja, er wusste Andy nicht.

Ich habe das den Schriftführern gesagt, die ich morgen sehen werde. Wir sind Freunde. Es gibt nichts Cinematisches über Andys Leben, außer von seinem Arbeit. Ich weiß nicht, was du schreiben wirst, weil er nicht cinematisch war.

Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah, I would call him, I always call him a vessel. Yeah. You know, things went in him and came out of him.

And see, that's the beauty of it. You never know, even if he's being me, if it's real. People ask me, is he dead, is he alive? And it doesn't matter what I say, because you never know what's real. Still, even now.

Which movie?

Man on the Moon.

Ah.

He didn't.

It's in the movie. There's a lot in the movie that's not correct.

No, he never. He never. He thought he was healed. I mean, he thought, you know, Jun Lebeau said, okay, you're healed now. And Landy said, okay. I mean, Andy, he was really savvy and smart, but he had this very naive side to this, his childlike naivete.

And the magical thinking. So he just believed it was all working.

Genau, genau. In Wahrheit, ich denke fast, er hat es nie gesagt, aber gehen in die Philippinen, ich dachte immer, ich dachte immer, er dachte, na, das ist das seltsame, was ich tun kann, Kanzer bekommen und in die Philippinen gehen.

You know?

You don't get, yeah, exactly, which is funny, isn't it? It's a funny dichotomy, like you're totally honest in wrestling. Yes. Yeah.

Right.

But the bad guy might become a good guy. Yeah. But, you know, back in the 60s, it was very different. People believed it. Ich meine, 60er-Wrestling war sehr anders. Aber auch jetzt, die Leute interessieren sich nicht. Sie interessieren sich nicht. Sie sind da für das Show. Es ist tolle Unterhaltung.

Was vermisse ich am meisten über Andy? Weißt du, wirklich nur hangen und Spaß haben? Ja. Weil ich immer noch so bin. Ja. Ich will immer nur hangen und Spaß haben. Ja. Ich gehe zu Disneyland. Ja. Ich liebe es.

We never went to Disneyland together, but he loved going to amusement parks.

Oh, God. There was an amusement park, we went.

He would love to get on a ride, and then as the ride was coming to a halt, he'd be crying. Like, that was so scary! In front of everybody? Yeah, yeah. He loved being a kid. He loved being a little kid. He just wanted to be a little kid.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, I'm so glad you loved it. I love it too.

Me too.