The stereotype of comedians is that they’re compulsively “on”, finding it difficult to revert to normal off-stage behavior when so much of their life revolves around getting laughs from a crowd. That makes Andy Kaufman particularly unusual, even this many years later: he is a comedian who worked so hard to raise questions about whether or not he was “on” that those questions lingered well after his death.
The creator of characters such as Foreign Man, who would unexpectedly break into a spot-on Elvis impression; Latka Gravas, the sitcom version of that character he did for the beloved show Taxi; the grotesquely abusive lounge singer never-was Tony Clifton; and the misogynist woman-wrestling showboat named, uh, Andy Kaufman constructed so many clever hoaxes to house his work that many assumed he must not actually have died young at the age of 35. (Some of his collaborators insisted on perpetuating that illusion, though his death certificate is widely viewable.)
