Amazon.co.uk: Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman: Bill Zehme: Books

Amazon.co.uk Review
Bill Zehme's biography of comic actor/performance artist Andy Kaufman (subject of the feature film Man in the Moon) is a meticulously researched, eminently readable and very strange book--this last being perhaps no surprise given its subject. Written over a six-year period, Lost in the Funhouse is crammed with details gleaned from interviews with the actor's family, friends, teachers, co-workers and unwitting participants in Kaufman's pranks. In particular, the book provides great insight into Kaufman's early life in Great Neck, New York; his relationship with transcendental meditation and his first forays into night clubs in the early 70s. Zehme, author of The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin', weaves together multiple narratives from varying perspectives, including passages in which the author appears to have entered his subject's brain. Zehme did have access to unpublished letters and manuscripts (which fans would certainly like to see published on their own one day) but the only person who could legitimately verify the accuracy of these passages is no longer with us.

At its best, the book approaches that apex of artful celebrity bi-fiction, Nick Tosches's Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams.The transitions from one perspective to the next are a bit jarring at first but once the reader gives in to Zehmes's collage of multiple personalities, one is considerably closer to understanding the book's subject. Kaufman was nothing if not a collector of various intense personalities: the young boy continually mourning his grandfather's death; the likeable and naive Foreign Man; the talentless and irascible lounge singer Tony Clifton; the bliss-seeking student of transcendental meditation; the devoted and loving son who never had anything to do with his own child; and world champion of inter-gender wrestling. Lost in the Funhouse is the one Kaufman tome that will please neophytes as well as those with their own Andy Kaufman Web sites. --Mike McGonigal

Book Description
"I believe in going all the way with it and not breaking character and not giving away to the audience that I'm playing a role. I believe in playing it straight to the hilt." In the 1970s a handful of comedians revolutionised American comedy: Steve Martin, John Belushi, Bill Murray. Foremost - and strangest - amongst them was Andy Kaufman. Part performance artist and part prankster, Andy Kaufman's comedy ranged from the inane to the bizarrely avant-garde. He played the bumbling Latka Gravas on Taxi; he reigned undefeated as World Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion, a title he invented; he was Elvis Presley's favourite Elvis impersonator. The only constant in Kaufman's work was his total commitment to the role. But as his star rose, the boundary between Andy the performer and Andy the person became increasingly blurred. Based on six years of research, Andy's own unpublished writings and hundreds of interviews, Bill Zehme brilliantly illuminates the comedian's dark and troubled progress. When, tragically, he was diagnosed with cancer, fans continued to believe that he was enacting an elaborate gag. Many still believe he did not die, but like the Elvis he impersonated so uncannily, is just biding his time, waiting for the right moment to make his comeback. Andy Kaufman's short and turbulent life has recently been filmed as Man On The Moon, directed by Milos Forman, and starring Jim Carrey as Andy. <

Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman (Paperback)

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