Home alone watching Andy Kaufman clips again
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4 Comments
He was so great. I haven’t watched that since it first aired on Lettermans morning show, which I also loved. Such an amazing actor, whatever percentage of acting is going on there anyway. That cough…mostly for real? I remember loving Andy as a kid, even before Taxi. He made a lot of appearances on Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore and Merv, shows that just needed to fill time every day. I remember watching those after school and just being so fascinated by him. I still remember hearing he was dead my freshman year of college and just being convinced it was a bit. I still half expect him to pop up someday. I need to dig out my small collection of Andy DVD’s asap.
Sadly, I never got to see the Letterman morning show, as I was in school and without a VCR. The clips I’ve seen, however, have been really good. It’s fun to see the genesis of the late night show I’d become so addicted to in the early 80’s. And Kaufman is brilliant, the way he turned celebrity around on itself. The work for him was clearly more important than the career, and I admire that immensely. As for the cough, I think it’s pretty clearly forced. It’s still a solid performance, though.
Weird. I was watching this clip the day before you posted it.
I think the Letterman morning show mostly ran over a summer. I saw it during break as I was also in school. I agree the cough was exaggerated in that clip, but watch other appearances. He coughed a lot. I think the bio on him said he had it for years before he had himself checked. He was truly one of a kind. I often wonder what he would be doing now, if he could have maintained a career or a level of creativity.