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Halfway through Clifton’s run, Andy returned to Los Angeles to prepare to host the season premiere of Fridays, for which he had devised a new reality. He told John Moffitt that he wanted to unveil a new him, a Born Again Christian him who would introduce viewers to his fiancée—the woman who had saved him from spiritual ruin. But first he had to find her, which he did—in the ABC studio directly next door, where The Lawrence Welk Show was taped. She was a twenty-nine-year-old featured gospel singer named Kathie Sullivan; he sat her down in the Fridays offices, where she nervously accepted his proposal of making televised charade. “He assured me that if I did this he would not do anything like rip my dress off or embarrass me in any way,” she said. “He knew that I was Born Again. He was a perfect gentleman.” Linda Mitchell asked what size ring she wore and then purchased a cheap but dazzling cubic zirconia for Sullivan to begin flaunting immediately (Andy informed the National Enquirer that it was a $10,000 diamond). He had a press release issued—ANDY KAUFMAN TO ANNOUNCE ENGAGEMENT THIS FRIDAY ON THE AIR—wherein Sullivan was quoted professing, “I’m glad God gave me the chance to meet him. I’m so glad I was given the opportunity to change his life.”

On Friday night, September 18, he opened the show in a three-piece brown polyester suit; his hair was carefully cropped; he glistened with renewal. Said Moffitt, “He had that look in his eyes that said he had seen God.” He began as Foreign Man and also did Mighty Mouse—reestablishing the benign him—then showed a clip of his unshaven self apologizing after the fight imbroglio. “That was a pretty low point in my life,” he said. “As you can probably tell, since then I’ve gone through a lot of changes.” Then he welcomed onto camera the woman responsible for those changes, whom he called his fiancée, and Sullivan confirmed her love for him and boasted of his conversion to Christianity and said, “We’ll probably end up with a bunch of little kids running around the house saying tenk you veddy much!” And they sang a soaring spiritual ballad “that really says just how Andy and I feel—it’s called ‘Home Again.’” She would recall, “I gave him the easy parts, but he did a real good job, on key and everything.” Later in the program, he further promulgated clean living by criticizing a drug sketch that had just been performed, which delayed his introduction of the rock group The Pretenders, which incited booing (just like the good old days), and he closed the show with the rousing gospel standard “By and By.” George said it was a very good put-on and thought people believed it. Well, many people did. Some people just never believe Andy. Fridays writer Steve Adams, author of the notorious restaurant sketch, would remember the universal response to the show somewhat differently—“His finding God didn’t work too well. By then the public was on to him. I think he knew it, too.”

Weeks later, he issued another press release—ANDY KAUFMAN AND KATHIE SULLIVAN CALL IT QUITS. “Mr. Kaufman,” it stated, “wants to keep his once-a-week busboy job at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Studio City and continue his intergender wrestling and Miss Sullivan did not approve. Mr. Kaufman found it more and more difficult to give up his own needs and wishes, especially wrestling.” Also, he found the three-piece suits too constricting. In truth, it was Sullivan who thought it prudent to cease the deception. “I got a lot of backlash from the Christian community,” she said. She did, however, get to keep the ring.

Henceforth, nothing would matter more than the ring. He was back in the ring on October 11—six years exactly since the night he first performed on Saturday Night Live—and this ring was in Atlantic City, where he wrestled Playmate Susan Smith (36-24-36, one hundred thirty-eight pounds, blond) at the Playboy Hotel and Casino. Playboy had challenged him, promising a major magazine pictorial feature documenting the event, which would also be taped for broadcast