Has anyone else seen this?
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040519/234/726q1.html
And, http://andykaufmanreturns.blogspot.com
Supposedly, Andy Kaufman faked his own death 20 years ago and is now revealing the truth, and it’s all part of a big plan to cement his status as the greatest performance artist ever, or something.
I smell hoax. But on the other hand, it would be so cool if it were true.
I really doubt it is true…I guess you never know, but I seriously doubt it.
If you pulled a prank of the magnitude why would you publicize it on a blogspot web page? And if your ego is big enough to pull a stunt like this to seal your place in history, wouldn’t you want bigger fanfare for your return?
Andy is dead. It is sad, but let’s move on.
Christ, if he is alive, I hope he stays hidden—I couldn’t stand him the first time.
The Yahoo link seems pretty convincing, but I am still skeptical. I await other cites.
It would be cool if it were true, but how did he pull it off? And how could any decent person fool is mother into thinking that he was dead for 20-freaking-years? Unless the family knew all along but is pretending that they didn’t, or something.
But yeah. I reserve judgment on this one.
Very strange. It does sound like something Kaufman would do. If it is true, I wonder if there are any legal reprecussions, like if his insurance paid out lo these many years ago.
When come back
bring Belushi.
He’s dead as a doornail. Though I have no doubt his friends and family will stage some elborate hoax to ‘keep his spirit alive’.
The guy craved attention good or bad all his life he simply could not have lain this low for this long.
Damn!
If he turns out to really be alive, can I kill him? I really hated him the first time around.
But this has “Fake” written all over it.
Hmm. Lennon’s four years late. What’s keeping him?
A few items on the Blogspot site makes me think it’s a hoax.
For instance:
Or this.
Is that even possible? Are faked death certificates even legal? I have a hard time that he could get a “friend” to stage this. It’s not like he was some A-List Hollywood actor or something.
Oh, and there’s this gem.
The way the entire site is written makes me think it’s just some really over-zealous fan. Perhaps Enrique P..
What is the statue of limitations on insurance fraud. I’m sure someone collected on his death.
And
If this was him shouldn’t he have shown up at the world premier of the movie based on his life? Now that would be how coming back from the dead is done.
It’s based on the documented fact that Kaufman constantly and frequently told his friends and family that he would love to fake his own death and that he would return exactly 20 years later if he did, and this week saw the 20th anniversary of his death.
I’m 99.99% sure this is a hoax, but if not I’m guessing Andy is in some majorly serious trouble with the IRS, Bureau of Vital Statistics, insurance companies and quite a few other agencies. I’m reasonably sure that faking your death (or at least your death certificate) would be a felony, and collecting death benefits (which his daughter probably did) would most certainly be one.
The Yahoo article is a press release, not an actual news article. It’s not a very reliable source.
Ok, so according to the thread about Merv Griffin that’s running right now, Kaufman said he’d reveal the hoax on Merv’s show 20 years after the fact. Merv said that starting 5/20, something amazing would happen on Jeopardy (a Merv Griffin Production)
Hmmm…
Oh I would say it’s a hoax. He’s dead.
The Yahoo press release is from PRWEB. Ever heard of them? Yeah, me neither. There’s a link to their website . I wouldn’t count on it being a reliable source.
I knew “Jim Carrey” wasn’t his real name! 
He had a daughter? I never heard that! And I think it was left out of Main In The Moon. Details?
When Kaufman was a young adult (late teens, early 20’s), he and a girlfriend of his had a daughter. She put the baby up for adoption. I don’t think Kaufman ever met his daughter. Her name escapes me.
In fact, the little girl who played Kaufman’s sister in Man on the Moon (IMDB gives her name as ‘Brittany Colonna’) is his granddaughter.
Did some Googling. He was twenty when his daughter was born and her name is Maria Bellu.
I suppose that this is as good a place as any to plug probably the greatest horror movie you’ve never seen: **God Told Me To**, which is (relatively) new to DVD and in which Kaufman briefly appears (so if you’re not a fan, you don’t have to put up with him for long) as a psycho cop.
Directed by cult favorite Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, Q), it combines snipers, religious whackos, alien abductions, tortured Catholic introspection, NYPD procedurals, and a climax that manages to be pseudo-messianic, quasi-incestuous, semi-hermaphroditic, and apocalyptic all at once–plus Sylvia Sidney!
A review or two. You’ll love it or hate it, but you gotta see it! A genuinely one-of-a-kind experience, it’s weird, wonderful, and a lot more weird. :eek: 
As for the “news”–I guess this’ll force me to say something I never thought I would: I’m taping Jeopardy (now I got to figure out when the hell it’s on).