Alexandra Tatarsky, a New York City actress, claimed to be legendary comic Andy Kaufman’s daughter and said he is still alive.
Kaufman died in 1984 of lung cancer, and Tatarsky is 24, meaning she was born in 1989. There have been longstanding rumors and conspiracy theories that Kaufman is still alive.
The Smoking Gun identified Tatarsky as the woman who appeared onstage in New York during the Andy Kaufman Awards this week. The website said that she is actually the daughter of a Manhattan doctor.
During the show, Tatarsky claimed that Kaufman dropped out of show-business and wanted to be a “stay at home dad.” To accomplish this, she added, he faked his own death.
But the whole incident was made more complicated when Kaufman’s brother, Michael, also said the comic was alive.
Michael Kaufman said that he discovered an essay about his brother’s desire to fake his death and that in 1999, he was told to meet him at a restaurant on Christmas Eve, according to CNN.
A man who wasn’t his brother came and handed him a note at the restaurant, saying “everything was great,” adding that he “wanted to get away from being Andy Kaufman,” he told the network.
At the awards show, Kaufman introduced Tatarsky as Andy’s daughter.
“It could be a great hoax in his honor, dreamed up by his friend Bob Zmuda and his brother, Michael. That would be something that would be in keeping with Andy’s tradition, but who’s to say. It could really be legit,” wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler told the network about the incident this week. Lawler wrestled with Kaufman in matches back in the 1970s and 1980s.
Kelly Dwyer, who was at the Kaufman award show, wrote on Facebook: “Anyone who was there will attest. Andy Kaufman’s daughter came onstage and claimed he was alive. It was. It was…I can’t tell you how it was, only that it was as real as any reality that i’ve seen. and yeah. I get that it is – could – might all be a hoax.”
Dwyer added that “she said he is alive and that the passing of his father this July made him want to reach out via her- to Michael, Andy’s brother. She said he is watching the award entries, semi and finalists with great interest always. He just wanted to disappear. To be a father. To be an observer. As much as this seems like bullshit as I type it, it was as real as anything I’ve ever seen. There is video. It was chilling, upsetting and absolutely intriguing. I bawled my eyes out. The entire room was freaked out. It was, if nothing else, brilliant.”
