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witnessing him perform to a Frank Sinatra record during an amateur showcase at the nearby Porterhouse Lounge. Andy decides that Clifton will be billed as his special guest/opening act at Carnegie Hall on April 26. Clifton arrives—after much confusion wherein he thinks a ticket is awaiting him at the box office—and performs with usual extravagant badness and the audience eventually storms the stage in riot and The New York Times calls Clifton the most obnoxious act in show business history and George is appalled at Andy’s lack of judgment and lectures, “Andy, they hate him! They were throwing things at him!” And there is a malevolent glint in Andy’s eye as he says, “That’s right, and they’re going to hate him more and more. They’re going to LOVE to hate him. And more important, they’re going to PAY to hate him. Gentlemen, I got myself the next Hula Hoop.”

And this comes to pass exactly and, in short order, Clifton is on the cover of Time magazine and there is a run on peach tuxedos throughout the land and his preferred exclamation of paranoia (“Getcha hands off me!”) becomes the ubiquitous catchphrase of the moment and he performs at the White House, where he disgraces Chinese diplomats (“What time does da Chinaman go to da dentist?”) and he is given his own weekly television show on NBC at which the audience happily comes to boo him as he torments celebrity guests—asking Raquel Welch about her cosmetic surgery and terrifying the San Diego Zoo’s Joan Embery, who has brought out a baby seal, which is then chased around the stage by a club-wielding baby-seal-killer from Newfoundland. And it is Andy Kaufman who is the Svengali-producer of this vulgar sideshow and who assures Clifton that it is all meant in fun because Clifton thinks this mania has gone too far and gotten too ugly. (George feels the same way and Andy tells him to relax and to try meditating, but George insists that Andy stop the madness, so Andy fires him.) To distract Clifton from his qualms, Andy has located Anna, the nice hooker, and sends Clifton off to romp with her and she awakens him at last to the notion that he is being used and he decides to do something meaningful in his career, so he tells Andy that he wants to star in a sensitive remake of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (since he feels a tragic kinship). Andy sets up the deal instantly (smelling, in fact, a comedy blockbuster) and now it is the night of the premiere and Clifton stands in the back of the theater and watches the audience scream with laughter at his Quasimodo, who has a cigarette dangling from his mouth, as per Cliftonian trademark, while being whiplashed by tormentors. Aghast that his noble dream has become a laughingstock, Clifton runs to find Andy in the theater manager’s office, where he is barking demands into a telephone (“I want the TV rights sewed up NOW, fucker!”), then, noticing Clifton, changes his telephone manner and says, “Yes, Grandma, I love you, too….”

Clifton wants the movie stopped and Andy—[Well, here was how Andy himself improvised the scene for George back in Lake Geneva, making illustrative use of his writing cigar: “Then Kaufman says, ‘Tony, sit down.’ ‘No, I think I’ll stand if you don’t mind.’ ‘Tony, let me explain to you the facts of life. Remember tenk you veddy much? You think I like doing that, baby? You think I like that —oh, he’s so cuuuute! I do it for two reasons, baby! For the moolah and the chickaroos! That’s why I do tenk you veddy much! You got a gimmick here, Tony. You gotta play it up! The public is stupid! The public eats it up! Listen to them—they’re laughing at you! They love you! Take the money!’ ‘Waitaminute! Lemme get this straight …’ ‘Tony, you have been played for a buffoon jerkoff! You think you could sing? You think you could act? You think people wanna look at you playing the hunchback of Notre Dame serious? Look at you! You’re a buffoon jerkoff! That’s all you are and that’s all you’ll ever gonna be! I made you! I made you! You think you’re gonna give me a hard time and blow it for me? I’m making a lot of money on you, pal. I’m not