Lost in the Funhouse_ The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman - Bill Zehme [139]
George sent flowers the next day and had Andy’s name inscribed on the card of apology. He also made Andy call the producers and Dinah herself afterward—which he grudgingly agreed to do. “I called Dinah two days later and I said, ‘Listen, Dinah, you have always treated me with such hospitality when I’ve been on your show. I have a lot of respect for you. And I would never do anything to upset your show. I had nothing to do with it. Tony Clifton is Tony Clifton and I am me.’ And she said, ‘Oh, that’s fine, Andy. I know that you weren’t there. I don’t know who told you that, but I wasn’t upset at you.’ Then she said, ‘I want you to come on the show,’ and I said I’d love to.” And, of course, he never returned as any of himselves.
Clifton = buffoon jerkoff = Andy.
Word spread.
He agreed to play a five-night engagement at Harrah’s Reno Resort and Casino in Nevada beginning October 6 because Bob told him that the Mustang Ranch was only fifteen minutes away. Harrah’s arranged a press luncheon to announce the event a week prior to the Dinah Shore appearance; the luncheon was held in the wine cellar of the tony Blue Fox restaurant in San Francisco, whose proximity to Nevada created puzzlement in itself. Andy showed the fortysome-such reporter people who attended how he could skip rope for ten minutes straight; he did so with his napkin tucked into belt. Milk and cookies were served for dessert. Gerald Nachman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “Booking Andy Kaufman into Harrah’s is rather like selling Andy Warhol originals at Lucky’s [supermarket].” Andy announced that he was no longer a song-and-dance man. “I’m a wrestler,” he said. He also said that he wished to publicly invite the three thousand Russian combat troops currently stationed in Cuba to fly to Disneyland at his expense. “We’ll go on some rides and then we’ll have milk and cookies. This is my contribution to world peace.” He looked stricken, as this was met with chuckling. “I’m serious! Everyone thinks everything I do is part of the act.” Zmuda had planted himself as a reporter from the Norwood Free Press (based outside of Chicago, he said) and assaulted Andy with many probing questions—“Is it true, Mr. Kaufman, that you wrestle women only to fulfill your perverted fantasies?” George eventually went over and slapped him, then threw him out.
Harrah’s Headliner Room would be the most commercial venue he had played to date and he did fine but cared more about getting over to the famous Mustang Ranch bordello as soon as the shows were over because this was the most exciting thing that he had ever done in his life. George would get several reports daily. George would sometimes be on the phone with Bob after Andy’s performances and he would hear Andy in the background imploding—“Come on, come on, Zmuda! We have to go, we have to leave!” Andy told George that he had sex with twenty-four Mustang girls that week. Zmuda could not keep up. Sean Daniel and Bruce Berman from Universal came to Reno to discuss the Clifton movie and Andy dragged them to the Mustang, where they could talk while he scoped his slatternly prey. Daniel would recall, “We were there for official business. Andy, on the other hand, was there for love. I think he found much love there.” Andy told George, “They loved me! It was truly a religious experience!” Sometimes he would pay them just to talk to him or to wrestle each other for him. He was different, they all thought. So nice, too, they thought, too. He returned to Los Angeles, deliriously happy, and was immediately treated for a red and itchy case of the clap.
On the night that arguably began the spiral toward destiny, he wore Grandpa Paul’s elegant calf-length Sulka bathrobe that he had inherited years earlier. Beneath the robe were the white longjohns and the black athletic trunks and beneath the trunks over the white