Andy Kaufman Biography
Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman (January 17, 1949 – May 16, 1984) was an American entertainer, actor and performance artist.
While often referred to as a comedian, Kaufman did not consider himself one.
He disdained telling jokes and engaging in comedy as it was traditionally understood, referring to himself instead as a "song and dance man."
Kaufman was born in New York City, on January 17, 1949, the first son of Janice (née Bernstein) and Stanley Kaufman.
He grew up in a middle-class Jewish family, in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, and began performing at age nine.
He attended the now defunct two-year Grahm Junior College, in Boston, graduating in 1971.
He then began performing stand-up comedy at various small clubs along the East Coast.
Kaufman first caught major attention with a character known as "Foreign Man", who claimed to be from "Caspiar" (a fictional island in the Caspian Sea) and would appear on the stage of comedy clubs to play a recording of the theme from "Mighty Mouse", lip-synch one line—"Here I come to save the day".
He would proceed to poorly tell a few jokes and perform a number of lackluster impersonations (Archie Bunker, Richard Nixon, etc.).
Some variations of this performance were broadcast in the first season of Saturday Night Live; the "Mighty Mouse" number was featured on the premiere October 11, 1975, broadcast, while the joke-telling and Bunker impression were included in the November 8 broadcast that same fall.
He might speak in a fake accent and say, "I would like to imitate Meester Carter, de President of de United States".
He would continue in the same voice: "Hello, I am Meester Carter, de President of de United States. T'ank you veddy much."
The audience would be torn between outrage at seeing such a bad act and empathy for the helpless entertainer, who would cry on stage once heckled enough.
At that point, Foreign Man would announce, "And now I would like to imitate the Elvis Presley," turn around, take off his jacket, slick his hair back, and launch into an Elvis Presley impersonation so good that Presley himself described it as his favorite.
After the wild applause that almost always came after his Elvis impression, he would take a simple bow and say in his "Foreign Man" voice, "T'ank you veddy much!" The audience would realize they had been tricked, which became a trademark of Kaufman's comedy.
