Andy Kaufman

Kaufman performs his Mighty Mouse routine on Saturday Night Live

Andrew Geoffrey "Andy" Kaufman (January 17, 1949 – May 16, 1984) was an American entertainer who made several appearances during the early years of Saturday Night Live.

Kaufman was an eccentric entertainer. He referred to himself as a "song-and-dance man" rather than a comedian. While he often got mixed reviews for his performances, during Lorne Michaels's first tenure as executive producer of SNL, Andy was invited to perform often. One of his early acts was Foreign Man, a man from a fictional island in the Caspian Sea who spoke in a very thick accent and attempted bad imitations such as Archie Bunker, Ed McMahon etc. usually ending with a flawless Elvis impersonation. He sometimes lip-synched to different records, and often brought members of the audience up to participate. His most infamous and controversial act, performed several times on Saturday Night Live, was his "Women's Wrestling Champion" bit, in which he would call on female volunteers from the audience to wrestle him.

He always won, though many times, if not all, the matches were staged. He proclaimed himself "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World," and once offered $1,000 to any woman who could pin him down.

His popularity on SNL lead him to being cast as mechanic Latka Gravas on the sitcom, "Taxi".  When "Taxi" co-star Danny DeVito hosted on May 15, 1982 , Andy and several other cast members made an appearence in the opening monolouge. 

In 1983, then-executive producer Dick Ebersol decided to ask the audience whether they wanted Kaufman to ever return to the show. Two 900 numbers were issued, one to keep Andy and one to "dump" Andy. Cast members during the episode would stand on stage between sketches and recite the numbers, some of them also trying to convince the audience to keep Andy. Eddie Murphy threatened the audience, half-jokingly, and Mary Gross read the "dump Andy" number comically fast to confuse callers. When the goodbyes came and the results were read, the viewers had voted to kick Kaufman off the show. The cast members made a point to show their disappointment, even mentioning it in later episodes, usually while insulting Ebersol's abilities as executive producer. The week following the vote, Kaufman purchased airtime on several local networks to plead with viewers to have him back on the show. The clips were shown on the next SNL, but Kaufman was never invited back. 

Kaufman passed away in 1984 of aggressive lung cancer which spread to his brain, eventually causing kidney failure. While many people believe his death was a hoax, due to his discussion of faking his own death with his friend and longtime business partner Bob Zmuda, his family, friends, and records maintain that he really died. 

Andy Kaufman wrestling

Andy impersonating Elvis

Andy Kaufman

Andy in his Women's Wrestling Champion shirt