Free Andy Kaufman Revealed! by Bob Zmuda Page B

I told only Andy. To this day, he is one of but a handful of people to whom I ever revealed this ugly secret. Andy always thought I had done it as a prank, despite my swearing I didn’t. He proclaimed it wildly subversive and later cited it as an inspiration for our particular form of lunacy. After he’d told others the story many times, I eventually gave up trying to disabuse him of the notion that it had been accidental.
    A friend named Barbara worked as an usher at a big theater on Broadway. Barbara would call from time to time with an offer to sneak me in. It was an opportunity for me to see a ridiculously expensive Broadway show for free. Despite the usually packed houses, she always tried to give me at least an hour’s notice before show time. One Saturday morning a little before noon, I got a call from her. “Can you get down here around two?”
    Unfortunately, I had been up all night and felt like warmed-over dogshit. “Richard Burton is doing
Equus
,” she continued. “It’s a great show I can get you in if you get here a little before two. Whaddya think?”
    Fuck it
, I thought,
it’s Richard Burton in the hottest show in town. The man hasn’t done Broadway since
Hamlet. “Thanks. I’ll be there,” I said, excited I could participate in a little bit of history.
    At the theater, Barbara met me at a back door and cautiously spirited me in, showing me to a seat right in front. I was thrilled by my unequaled view of the stage.
Equus
is staged as a courtroom drama, and to fill the jury, audience members are selected. The seat I occupied happened to be one of those seats, so just before the play began I was ushered onto the stage and my terrific seat suddenly became a whole lot better. Then Richard Burton took the stage. It was very impressive to see him working at that range. I was in the first row of the jury box, so I was about as front row as you could get. Unfortunately.
    The toll of probably thirty or more hours without sleep began to overtake me, and after about an hour of listening to the marvelously lilting voice of the Welsh artist, it began to have a tragically relaxing effect on me — I completely zonked out.
    Now, the only thing worse than falling asleep on stage was awakening myself with my own snoring. And the only thing worse than awakening myself by snoring in the middle of Richard Burton’s performance was to open my eyes to find Richard Burton inches from my face, his own countenance fire-engine red in nearly uncontrolled fury.
    I had single-handedly (or single-nosedly) stopped Richard Burton dead in his tracks on a Broadway stage. Unbelievably disturbing as this was, I arose in abject mortification and looked to the master thespian for his forgiveness. “Sorry, Mr. Burton, I haven’t slept in two days.”
    As Burton’s eyes flared angrily, I turned to the audience and, raising my voice, inadvertently took control of the house. “Sorry, I haven’t slept in a couple of days. Sorry.”
    I then walked off the stage, down the center aisle past a stunned audience, and out the front door. So shaken, I went home and couldn’t sleep.
    One evening Andy dropped by my place. “Wanna see a show?” he asked.
    “A movie?” I assumed.
    “No. Theater. Live stuff.”
    “What, like a musical?”
    “No.” He shook his head. “Great drama. Classical Greek.”
    I figured it was another Andy put-on and that we’d end up seeing a movie, probably
Night of the Living Dead
, which he loved, and which we’d seen six times. But he seemed serious. Then again, that’s when he was really setting you up. We caught a cab across town, and when we arrived in front of the huge marquee, I knew I’d been had — it read: TONIGHT: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING . The card listed Bruno Sammartino versus some Indian chief. I looked at Andy. “Classical Greek drama, my ass.”
    He was indignant. “You’re wrong. Wrestling is the basis of all drama. It dates back to the ancient Greeks.”
    He said it with such