AP PHOTO/DOUGLAS HEALEY
DEAD
OR ALIVE
He’d question the death hoax theory on
the site’s forum, which was moderated
by a woman with the punny, fake-sounding name of Claire Channel.
“Some of the posters seemed to get a
bit angry,” Bristow wrote in an email to
The Huffington Post. But “Claire would
never get mad.”
In 2004, Kaufman’s longtime partnerin-crime Bob Zmuda organized a tribute
night at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. The event piqued the interest of everyone at AKLives.
Kaufman reportedly once teased that,
if he died, he would return 20 years later.
And Zmuda’s show, Andy Kaufman: Dead
Or Alive, was scheduled for May 16 — 20
years to the day since Kaufman left.
Bristow wanted to go but didn’t have
the cash. Then came an email from
Channel, asking if he was attending.
When Bristow wrote back, he says she
returned with an offer: “I have a few
spare tickets lying around.” Overjoyed,
Bristow started packing. He says he later
found out his two $175 tickets weren’t
Channel’s only gift; she apparently also
covered tickets, airfare and hotel rooms
for others who posted to the site.
About a year later, Bristow got another email from Channel, a confession
“that she was not a girl at all, but that
she was, in fact, Stephen Maddox.” The
ruse, coupled with Maddox’s generosity,
struck him as meaningful.
HUFFINGTON
06.16.13
Alan Abel, a
professional
hoaxer who
once faked his
death in The
New York Times,
met Kaufman
in 1981.
“Most of the people ... who claim to
be dead celebrities are usually scam artists,” Bristow wrote. “But Maddox has
never asked anybody for money, as far as
I know. Instead, he spends money generously on Andy Kaufman fans. And Andy
was famously generous with his fans.”
That the dead celebrity in question