He said, “I’d like to make you my permanent writer.” He moved me to Hollywood. One thing led to another, and his career took off. When “Saturday Night Live” started I wrote some of his pieces for SNL. Wexler turned the recordings into scripted dialogue in his movies.Īndy wanted to hear Wexler stories. My job was to jump in and pay them off before they actually killed us. These people would get so upset they would attack Wexler. He would get into arguments with people to the point where they wanted to kill him. He would then start confrontations with real-life New Yorkers - everyone from cab drivers to gangsters. Then he and I would hit the streets of Manhattan with a suitcase full of cash - around 30,000 bucks. During the day I start working for the screenwriter Norman Wexler, who wrote “Serpico” and “Saturday Night Fever.” Q: How did you go from that to becoming Andy’s writer and co-conspirator?Ī: I worked as the bartender at the Improv at night. That was my first meeting with Andy Kaufman. SEE ALSO: ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’ will continue TV traditions He closes the trunk and says, “Dank you very much” as Foreign Man, then “Sucker!” in his regular voice. He sees me and calls out as the Foreign Man: “Excuse me, can you help me? I have a very bad back.” I started loading all this heavy stuff into his car. I wonder is this an act or just some foreign guy who does a solid Elvis. About a half-hour later I see him coming out dragging all these props - conga drums, a film projector and lights. Instead of that terrible foreign voice, he does a drop-dead, spot-on Elvis impression. Andy changes into a costume and combs his hair like Elvis, turns around to the audience, and he looks like Elvis. The Elvis Presley.” He turns his back to the audience. It’s quite the psycho drama.įinally, Andy says, “I would like to do the one last impression. Then he realizes that you are not laughing with him but at him. But the audience is howling because this guy is such an idiot. Andy just lights up, and each impression gets worse and worse. ‘Hello, I’m Ronald Reagan.’” The audience starts laughing because it’s so bad. He starts doing these impressions in that foreign voice. Andy Kaufman.”Īndy comes up onstage, and everybody in the place believes that this guy is from God knows what country and just arrived in New York. We normally don’t do this, but I’m gonna let him up tonight. Budd Friedman comes out and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, we usually end the show at this point, but I don’t know if you saw the man who came in earlier asking to be onstage. Then the crowd would move in from the bar to the main room and see the show. Come back then.” Kaufman would beg, “Please, this is my dream to be performer in New York City.” Budd said, “I can’t. I’m sorry we have auditions on the 3rd of every month. He was asking Budd Friedman, the owner, if he could go onstage in that broken foreign accent - just loud enough that people in the bar could overhear what was happening. He was playing the “Foreign Man” character, carrying a suitcase, pretending he had just stepped off a Greyhound bus at 42nd Street. Nobody knew who he was or that he going on stage. A: Andy showed up in the club about an hour and half before the show and hung around the bar outside the main room.
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