Lost in the Funhouse (29 page)

Because Clifton refused to occupy Andy’s dressing room, an enormous Winnebago trailer (with fully stocked bar) had been procured by Weinberger and, by most accounts, two bona fide call girls—very tall and blond and accommodating—were separately hired to dawdle with Clifton for the length of the week. (Weinberger maintained
that they were extras, not pros.) Also, Linda Mitchell, a brunette, would become Clifton’s brassy blond-wigged secretary Ginger Sax; Zmuda would be his zoot-suited handler Bugsy Meyer. They would arrive at the Paramount gates in a rented pink Cadillac. Monday was to be the first table-reading of the script—in which the brothers DiPalma stage a poker game to decide which of them would entertain their mother for the holidays—and that morning the actors all gathered to begin business.
Tony Clifton came to work five minutes early,
Shapiro reported,
and he complained about the other people when they came in late.
(Which was meant to further divert suspicion away from Andy.) And so there they all sat, gawking at him, stifling laughter, stifling irritation, as he hid behind sunglasses and below latex and they saw that the orangey-spongey makeup stopped at his ears and it was Conaway sitting beside him who first smelled the remarkable B.O.—or was it cologne? or urine? or whiskey? or all?—and Clifton lit up his Camels and swigged from his pint of Jack Daniel’s and they knew Andy never drank or smoked. But Clifton actually
tried
to be congenial and made much reference to Las Vegas and bleated his dialogue as abrasively as possible
(“Louie,
you
know Ma—sometimes she’s saaaaad, sometimes she’s glaaaaaad!”),
altering it beyond anything recognizably written on the page. Mostly, however, he smelled really really awful. “You wanted to take a bath after you’d been in the room with him,” Henner said. “He was just sickening, always going
‘Hey, pretty lady, how ya doin’, baby!’
He kept coming on to me, which Andy never did.” In fact, he chased whatever “chickaroonies” materialized before him, offering free trips to Vegas and intimate tours of his Winnebago and it was soon eminently clear that Clifton was in no way capable of acting any part other than that of himself.

“His reading was terrible,” said Weinberger. “And the cast was looking at me and I just saw that this was gonna be a bitch. Then Tuesday we had a run-through and that was a disaster. This was not acting. He did not mesh, not even remotely. So I realized that I had to get rid of him. It was too early in the life of the show to make an episode you couldn’t air. So at the end of the day I called George and
said, ‘Look, I have to fire him.’ He said, ‘Well, you know, Andy’s gonna be devastated.’ I said, ‘I have no choice, you know?’ So he said, ‘Well, you have to explain it to him.’ He told me Andy could walk, might leave the show and take both Tony Clifton and Latka with him. So I called Tony in his Winnebago and asked if Andy could come up to the office and I think it was Andy who then came up and sat on my couch and I was very tentative because I didn’t want to offend or lose Andy. But I said, ‘I have to tell you: Tony Clifton is not an actor. You know, he’s a
lounge performer.
He is just too big for this room; he overpowers this whole episode. He doesn’t fit the way we need him to fit. He can’t do it.’

“And I was very relieved and surprised when he very quickly said, ‘I agree with you. But what’re you gonna do?’ And I said, ‘Well, I have to fire him.’ I’m very careful to say
him
and not
you.
And Andy agreed—as always, he was very deferential and polite and soft-spoken, but he said, ‘Okay, but would you do me a favor? Would you fire him tomorrow, but not because he’s a bad actor? Could you fire him because he’s late and comes in drunk or something? I’ll have Tony come in late after lunch and then you fire him in front of everybody and say you had to hire another actor because he didn’t show up.’ And I said, ‘Yes, I could do that.’ And I saw that this would be theater for him. He was already putting his little script together.”

Ed. Weinberger called me just now to tell me how he’s going to fire Tony Clifton. From what I understand, he’s going to do this in front of the entire cast and crew tomorrow. And it’s going to be part of—let’s say—“theatre of life,” which is what Andy loves. They are going to put on a total scene and a reporter from the
Los Angeles Times,
Bill Knoedelseder, will also be there tomorrow
[because he has been writing a piece about Andy]
This whole situation is one of the most bizarre things I have ever witnessed. Really very bizarre. And exciting and interesting and crazy. I’m going to be there tomorrow for the firing.

Today is October 4—it’s Wednesday morning. I found out through the casting director Rhonda Young that they have already hired an actor to take over Tony Clifton’s part today. His name is Richard Foranjy. And he was told to report at 2:30. I think I have the
Times
reporter who was supposed to interview Tony coming at 2:30 and the rest of the cast is also coming at 2:30. And I’ll be there at 2:30.

Ginger Sax was dispatched to buy gifts for the cast and producers which would be personally distributed by Clifton and his two blond hookers after lunch on Wednesday. Cards would be attached bearing uncommonly warm sentiments—“It’s a pleasure working with you. I’m proud to be a member of the cast
of Taxi.
P.S. Let’s all break a leg on Friday. Love, Tony ‘Nick’ Clifton.” The gifts were little remote-control battery-operated toy dogs that walked and barked and wagged their tails and each actor would receive one and begin to play with his/her dog which Ginger had already installed with batteries and they all seemed sort of touched by the gesture and certainly amused except for Conaway who would take his yapping dog and smash it against a wall and, meanwhile, they would all wonder why there were at least fifty people sitting in the bleachers after lunch since this was just a Wednesday rehearsal and usually only crew and staff members were present for such routine business. Tony Danza, however, knew something was going to happen because he brought a home-movie camera with him and told the technicians to light the stage when Clifton walked in. And George, of course, sensing history, brought his portable tape recorder so that he might describe the action beheld from his seat in the bleachers. And he had urged the
L.A. Times
reporter Bill Knoedelseder to bring a camera in case any photo opportunities arose. And Weinberger—quite aware of his role in the imminent mayhem—had instructed crew members to call his office the minute Clifton arrived on Stage 25.

It’s 2:30
P.M.
and I’m sitting up here with Rhonda Young, the famous casting director, and Ginger Sax, Tony Clifton’s secretary/assistant. Ginger is a very pretty lady with blond curly hair and a very sexy green gown—just very classy, someone that Tony Clifton would approve of, obviously.

[Clifton entered here with his flanks.]
Tony is now giving out gifts to all the members of the cast. Danny DeVito has a big smile on his face as he is opening up his gift. Judd Hirsch said, “Something’s ticking in here.” Randy Carver has a big smile on his face.
[Much laughter could be heard.]
There are a lot of little stuffed animals running around the reading table now—there’s a little Scotty dog, a whole bunch of different dogs. They are adorable! It’s absolutely adorable. Tony came out with these two young ladies who were in the trailer with him—a blonde and another blonde. The blondes are completely breaking up; everyone is breaking up. Tony Danza has a movie camera—he’s taking pictures of all the animals. This is sensational. Clifton is walking around in his peach tuxedo with black velvet collar and blue shirt. He just said, “Let’s get back to work!” And the director Jim Burrows said, “I have to talk to Ed. Weinberger about a script change.” Clifton just said that he rented a place and invited the whole cast to a party there after filming on Friday. He’s really being very friendly right now to the cast.

Weinberger just walked on the set—the executive producer and spokesman for the producing team. Tony just handed Weinberger a very nice gift and Ed. immediately handed it off to the executive in charge of production, Ron Frazier, who put it on the cab in the garage set. Now they are having a conference in the corner of the stage, away from everybody.

[Weinberger would recall, “I came on the stage, which was cluttered with all these little mechanical things tottering around. Clifton actually had the same walk as these toys did, which I’ll never forget. He was taking swigs from a pint of whiskey and saying that he just rewrote the script of the show during lunch. He told me that he wrote
parts for the two girls he had with him. But I had to play my role as irate producer
—‘Tony, I warned you about this! You’re late! I’ve hired another actor, so get off the stage—you’re fired!’
I thought it would be over. It wasn’t. He wouldn’t leave. He waved the script in my face and said,
‘Here, read my changes!’
And I ripped the script out of his hands and threw it away. He then held out his liquor
—‘Here, have a drink!’
Everybody was now watching us and I was getting slowly pissed because he was betraying our agreement. But he just walked away from me.”]

Now Tony is walking back to center stage and he’s singing, “Let’s get this show on the road, let’s go!” He sits down at the table and tells the two girls, “Come on, sit on my lap.” Each girl is sitting on a knee in the middle of the stage. Ron Frazier went over and is talking to him and Tony said, “Getcha hands off me! Getcha hands off me! Who the hell are you?”
[No one had touched him yet.]
Ed. Weinberger is calling me, as [Tony’s] manager, onto the stage. I’m now walking down there to get him out. All sorts of commotion—Tony’s yelling “I’m calling the cops! Getcha hands off me! I’m calling the cops!”

George’s tape would now capture various screams from various players and yet it could not wholly contain the breadth of emotional forensics that engulfed the stage. Voices of order implored that valuable time was being squandered and that there was an actual show to work on. Voices of exasperation huffed into corners. Rages steeped or blew. Conaway had already moved toward Clifton once—“I wanted to hit him,” he would remember. “And Jim Burrows grabbed me and said, ‘No, Jeff, you should leave now. Let Judd handle it.’ I said, ‘I’m gonna kill him!’ He said,
‘That’s
why you have to leave!’”—then he retreated. Danza kept filming everything and Hirsch watched until he could watch no longer. “I felt responsible for the show,” he said later, “and I thought I better help get rid of this guy.” And Weinberger was telling Clifton to leave with George, and Clifton hollered,
“Where’s the director! Let’s get to work! I am waiting for everybody!”
And finally security was called and three Paramount cops arrived and they knew nothing about any theater-of-life bullshit and therefore
lunged very seriously for Clifton who yelled,
“I got a contract here, I got a contract!”
Whereupon Hirsch announced to no one in particular, “He wants a psychodrama? I’ll give him a psychodrama!” And his eyes flared with a menace that no one had seen before and he stalked toward Clifton and bellowed,
“You think you are the only one here!? I’ve got a contract with a whole lot more shows than you got! Get off this set!”
And he began throttling Clifton while the guards yanked at the foul tuxedo and Clifton yelped,
“Getcha hands off me!”
And everyone applauded except for George who shouted, “Don’t hurt him! He’s a talented man! He’s talented!” And the guards and Hirsch dragged Clifton to the doors and he screamed,
“Fuck you! I will be back one day when I play Vegas! None of you will get in when I play! I’ll be a big star! You wait and see! You wait and see! Getcha hands off me—I’m going back in there! I am not going to put up with this crap!”
And he was out of the building and Knoedelseder was snapping his newspaper photographs throughout and Hirsch left the security men to complete their task outside and he would recall, “I had no idea what was going to happen after that because the true body I was shoving off the stage was Andy Kaufman. Then I started to realize that I wasn’t throwing out Andy Kaufman; I was throwing out Tony Clifton, which was a phantom, a fiction—a fiction with a real body. And how Andy Kaufman comes back and becomes Andy Kaufman again was no mystery to him—only to the rest of us.”