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List Price: $24.00 | | Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Salesrank: 840964
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| Our Price: $2.74 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
Best known for his sweet-natured character Latka on Taxi, Andy Kaufman was the most influential comic of the generation that produced David Letterman, John Belushi, and Robin Williams. A regular on the early days of Saturday Night Live (where he regularly disrupted planned skits), Kaufman quickly became known for his idiosyncratic roles and for performances that crossed the boundaries of comedy, challenging expectations and shocking audiences. Kaufmans death from lung cancer at age 35 (hed never smoked) stunned his fans and the comic community that had come to look to him as its lightning rod and standard bearer. Bob Zmuda, Kaufmans closest friend, producer, writer, and straight man, breaks his twenty-year silence about Kaufman and unmasks the man he knew better than anyone. He chronicles Kaufmans meteoric rise, the development of his extraordinary personas, the private man behind the driven actor and comedian, and answers the question most often asked: Did Andy Kaufman fake his own death? A movie about Kaufman starring Jim Carrey, directed by Milos Forman, and co-executive produced by author Bob Zmuda and Danny DeVitos Jersey Films, is scheduled for national release in fall 1999.
Description of Andy Kaufman Revealed!: Best Friend Tells All:
American comedian Andy Kaufman (1949-1984) was a performer like no other--a rule-breaking iconoclast who blurred the line between performance art and comedy, at times between life and art itself. Misunderstood by the public at large during his lifetime, and embraced by a cult of fans that has consistently grown since his premature death from cancer, Kaufman is the perfect counter-cultural martyr, ripe for a Gap khakis ad. Like Lenny Bruce before him, Kaufman chafed at the reigns of comedy; he didn't always want to make people laugh, in fact he wished to make them uncomfortable. One might consider those notorious French bad-boy playwrights Alfred Jarry and Antonin Artaud (who pushed the envelope of good taste and thoroughly enjoyed confusing their audiences) to be Kaufman's spiritual predecessors, though this might be taking things too seriously. His most well-known routines--the inept stand-up comedian "foreign man," the basis for the character Latka Gravas on the hit sitcom "Taxi"; the grizzled, professional lounge lizard Tony Clifton; and the reigning world champion of inter-gender wrestling--all hinged on making the crowd squirm. Life was a show for Kaufman, who began staging elaborate shows for friends and family at the age of 7; everything was a put-on and yet totally, dead-on serious.
Judging by Bob Zmuda's book (released in anticipation of a biographical movie starring Jim Carrey), Kaufman wasn't the easiest guy to be a best friend to. But, as Zmuda tells things, he rose to the challenge--letting Kaufman confide that he had a daughter he'd never seen, keeping his mouth shut at the appropriate times, and otherwise fulfilling best-friend duties with aplomb. Andy Kaufman got the friend he deserved in his lifetime, but this is not the biography he deserves; it is written in a well-meaning though hackneyed and hard-to-digest style. Simple points are made again and again, as if the two(!) authors were attempting to fuse a poorly-written college essay with a USA Today article. And Mr. Zmuda makes the mistake of assuming that his own history will be of much interest to the reader, who is ostensibly reading a tell-all about Kaufman, not his best friend. There are tremendous anecdotes here; about half the book is filled with glorious tales of artful mischief, hijinks, pranks, and funny stuff that Zmuda and Kaufman pulled on friends, crowds, and strangers. Fans will undoubtedly want to pick this one up, while those with a more casual interest are cautioned to perhaps look elsewhere for a less clumsily written tome. --Mike McGonigal
Andy Kaufman Revealed!: Best Friend Tells All Reviews:
it's been awhile since i read this book 
2009-02-17 - but i remember my thoughts while reading it. i came away feeling that the author (zmuda) was making a WAY bigger picture of himself than what i had ever heard before. i'm a huge andy fan and have read, watched, listened to everything andy. when i read this book, i was truly surprised how much of what i had already (known) wasn't true, according to this book. so i'm left to wonder...do i believe this book and the author of this book who claims (virtually) that he invented andy, or do i trust what my eyes and ears tell me. i'm gonna go with andy on this one. and all of the seemingly sincere reviews that support the author of this book, are, in my opinion, fake. go ahead and blast this review with your negative ratings: i'm quite sure, andy would love it if you did!
A quick read for new and old Kaufman lovers 
2008-07-20 - I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this read as I had never seen Andy Kaufman when he was alive (I'm 25). Once I picked it up I was unable to put it down. This is an excellent book with wonderful stories. By the end you will appreciate the true nature of friendship and feel like you know both Bob Zmuda and Andy Kaufman in a way that you never did before. Whoever you are Mr.X, you are a madman!
Excellent Read! 
2008-05-05 - Nicely written book about Andy Kaufman and Bob Zmuda. For a diehard fan of Kaufman's...it's an excellent read!
I would recommend this book to my friends.
Great companion piece to "Lost In The Funhouse"
2008-04-30 - This book should be read along with "Lost In The Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman" by Bill Zehme for a more complete view of Andy.
"...Revealed!" is a great memoir from Andy's closest collaborator, Bob Zmuda's anecdotes are incredibly entertaining. The thing is though they are just anecdotes, a collection of stories, this is not a flowing narrative, it's just fun. You really could open up to any page and be entertained.
When it comes to Andy's life before he met up with Bob, it's a lot of "Andy told me this..." , they are second hand stories. That's why "Lost In The Fun House" is so essential to get the full story of Andy's life (as much as it can be collected or believed).
Buy this book, it's great!
I agree: Mr. X himself is worth your time
2005-09-30 - If "Man on the Moon," which depicted the trite TV reruns of Kaufman's wrestling shows bored you, you should read this book. Milos Foreman probably believed that Zmuda's insights were unappealing to mass movie audiences... which is why his film failed.
...and I must write that I have read biographies about Napoleon Bonaparte, Benjamin Franklin, Friedrich Nietzsche, etc... but no one fascinates me quite as much as "Mr. X." When I read Zmuda's descriptions about him, I laughed so hard that I almost literally could not breathe. Zmuda did not diagnose him, but allow me: a paranoid schizophrenic who has a seemingly bottomless war chest. He is "carpe diem" gone absolutely insane.... and a part of me hopes he is alive.
