Photo: Paramount./Everett/REX USA.
The groundbreaking, brilliantly absurd comic Andy Kaufman died in 1984 of a rare type of lung cancer. That's the official word, at least. Rumors have circulated for years that the comic faked his own death and is now in hiding, living under a pseudonym. This week at the Andy Kaufman Awards in New York, a woman came to the stage and announced that the comic is indeed still alive and that she was his daughter.
According to The Comic's Comic, the unnamed woman came on stage after Kaufman's brother, Michael, revealed that he had discovered an essay written by Andy that explained his plans for faking his death. The essay reportedly stated that Kaufman would reappear on Christmas Eve of 1999 at one of his favorite restaurants. When Michael went to the restaurant that day, a waitress there gave him a letter from Andy saying that he was in hiding and living with a woman with whom he'd had a daughter. The letter asked Michael not to say anything until after their father, Stanley, had died.
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Stanley died this summer, and Michael claimed that he received a call from a woman — the same one who appeared on stage Tuesday — who said that Andy was still alive. Here's TMZ's video of the encounter:
After the woman left, Michael asked the audience not to let her have her privacy.
Killy Dwyer, a comedian and an Andy Kaufman Award finalist, was apparently in attendance. She wrote on her Facebook page: "I can't tell you how it was, only that it was as real as any reality that i've seen. and yeah. I get that it is - could - might all be a hoax. That was the only and last thing I want to say....It was chilling, upsetting and absolutely intriguing. I bawled my eyes out. The entire room was freaked out. It was, if nothing else, brilliant. and incredibly mindf**kng and AWESOME."
If it is a hoax, it would be one that Kaufman would've loved. (Telegraph)