in the memories of those who had witnessed the debacle of its genesis. Rehearsals would commence Monday, October 2—three weeks after Taxi had debuted to glowing notices from critics who reveled in the program’s emotional texture and intelligence. “There has never before been a sitcom written with the dramatic depth of this one,” Frank Rich declared in Time, adding that “Saturday Night Live Regular Andy Kaufman brings a saving sweetness to the garage mechanic who speaks his own variety of fractured English.” Dean of TV critics Marvin Kitman enthused in Newsday, “What an inspiration it was to make Andy Kaufman a regular on a sitcom. It’s something to look forward to every Tuesday night. The whole country will be doing their Latka Gravas imitations by next month.” After the series premiere, Andy had briefly returned to the road, performing a college engagement in Macomb, Illinois (his contract now carried a new rider stipulating that he would/must wrestle female audience members no matter what anyone said or thought), followed by two shows at the Park West Theater in Chicago. While away, he had Michael oversee the purchase of a brand-new Chrysler Cordoba and this would be his first new car ever, a big-sprawling-cabin-cruiser-of-a-car—long and wide and white with sunroof and blue interiors including, certainly, the fine Corinthian leather upholstery. Andy did ask me through his brother if I felt it was too ostentatious, George reported in the taped diaries of his special client’s career progress which he began privately recording two weeks earlier. It’s a nice car, it’s sporty, and it’s not like driving a Rolls-Royce or a Mercedes or a Cadillac. I think he should have a car that he is going to enjoy. He’s worked hard, he’s paid his dues, he earned it. So why not, right? Anyway, before Clifton befell Taxi, Andy returned to Paramount Stage 25 to film two more episodes, including his first prominently featured show, “Paper Marriage,” in which Latka foils immigration officials seeking to deport him by marrying, in name only, a prostitute (oh!) whom Alex Rieger hired to save him. (Upon learning there would be no conjugal wedding night after the ceremony, Latka laments, “Boy, America ees a tough town.”)
On Thursday, September 28, scripts of the “Brother Rat” show—which had been written solely to facilitate the Tony Clifton contract—were distributed among the cast and all of them wondered who this Tony Clifton was and why he was playing this role. George had gotten a call later that day, he reported, from Taxi casting director Rhonda Young, who was on the set when the questions first arose: The full cast was sitting around the table and Judd Hirsch asked, “Who is Tony Clifton?” And Rhonda said, “He’s a good actor, he’s like Danny DeVito’s character—he’s a mean and coarse kind of a guy, a real rat. That’s why he got the role.” After the meeting was over, Rhonda went over to nudge Andy and said, “Hey, I did good, didn’t I?” As if to say, “I covered up pretty good, didn’t I?” And Andy said to Rhonda, “Oh, no, the real Tony Clifton is going to be here. I only imitated Tony Clifton. I know you came into the Comedy Store and saw that performance, but I’m not going to be here. I’m going away for three weeks. Next week, the real Tony Clifton is going to be here to play that part.” And no one would be especially fooled because Ed. Weinberger—who had been sworn to secrecy by Shapiro—soon began taking the actors aside, according to Randall Carver (who played yokel cabbie John Burns), to tell each of them “that Andy wasn’t going to be in the next episode, but this lounge singer from Las Vegas who might resemble Andy, but wasn’t Andy, would be there instead. And we all kind of scratched our heads.” Thus the word spread and the concerns simmered. Danza: “‘Don’t talk to him as if he’s Andy’—that’s what we were told—‘buy in!’” Henner: “We heard, ‘It’s Andy but it isn’t Andy—just play along.’” Conaway: “I said, ‘You gotta be kidding! Everything’s always revolving around this guy, because he’s always making us wait for him! And now you’re saying we