Lost in the Funhouse_ The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman - Bill Zehme [140]
longjohns was the masking tape that Zmuda had wrapped around the groin and pelvic region to conceal the appearance of a televised erection. It was October 20 and it was Saturday Night Live: He started out nicely enough, speaking of the olden days when wrestlers had traveled with carnivals from town to town offering money to any man who could last three minutes in the ring with them. His tone was quite pleasant as he explained that he had been doing the same, only with women. (“This is a very legitimate thing and the reason I chose women is because I’m not an athlete…. If I chose a man, I might get beaten.”) (… rubbing …) He maintained his level tone while sharing his belief that women were best suited for the-scrubbing-the-washing-the-peeling-the-mopping, but lamented that men of late had allowed women to achieve societal status gain—“Men are a bunch of pussycats and pansies for letting this happen. And I think the men in this country are nothing but pitiful specimens of manhood.” And, of course, the audience—women and men alike—grumbled and booed, since he had now alienated both sexes and all of North American humankind at once. Zmuda waved the five hundred dollars in the air and five volunteers bounded to the stage and the audience selected a pregnant woman to wrestle him—which he would not do—so he asked for the runner-up, who happened to be prettiest and she was a lithe brunette named Mimi Lambert, heiress to the Lacoste sportswear fortune, who studied dance with Martha Graham and was clad in a leotard because she had danced six hours that day (“My legs were like rubberbands”) and she had no idea who Andy Kaufman was because she never watched television but thought he was obnoxious and she lasted well beyond the allotted three minutes, although referee Zmuda neglected to notice, as was his occasional habit, before she was pinned. And during their grappling, he broke away to strut and mug and bait the audience that wanted his blood—“Shadduppp! Shadduppppp! I’m not chokiri’! Come onnnnn! Let’s see some competition up here!”—and after he was declared the winner he gave Mimi Lambert a kick as she began to get to her feet and shoved her back down on the mat. Then he strutted some more and breathlessly issued an open challenge to Olympic swimmer Diana Nyad (“supposedly the world’s strongest lady”) to wrestle him on a future show, offering ten thousand dollars if she won. “Not only that—but I’ll have a barber here and if you beat me, I will have my head shaved in front of everyone right here in the ring! Diana, any time, baby! I don’t think you can dooooooo itttttttttttt!” And he clucked like a chicken. And then he took Mimi out for a very late dinner and they began dating immediately thereafter and she joined him on tour within three weeks and returned with him a few more times to Saturday Night Live, where Bill Murray would send flowers to her in Andy’s dressing room and Andy always walked the flowers directly out of the dressing room and made sure to give Murray a curious look every time he did so.
He was throwing fits in hotels. At the Seattle Hilton, the switchboard ignored his requests to have his morning calls stopped. He threatened to slander the hotel whenever possible, using much offensive language to illustrate his point. George had to make nice. At the Chicago Holiday Inn, he was asked to relinquish his large room for a smaller one due to a mix-up. He screamed and kept the big one. Only four hundred tickets were sold for his Chicago engagement at the University of Illinois; the auditorium capacity was eleven hundred. A week earlier, only two hundred ninety tickets were sold for a Boston concert, which was canceled due to lack of interest. (A short six months had passed since he had sold out Carnegie Hall.) George believed it was the wrestling. The mail poured in after the Saturday Night Live appearance, all very extremely hostile. George told him to maybe rethink it. He told George that he had a better idea—a crosscountry tour, underwritten by a sponsor, in which all tickets would cost only ninety-nine cents apiece.