DENICE NORA/COURTESY OF FRANK NORA
DEAD
OR ALIVE
(he played an orphan in The Blues
Brothers), says he hunted like “freaking
Sherlock Holmes” for the two
hoax artists.
“I got an email out of the blue from
[Clendenin] telling me that he’s been
following the stuff I’ve done over the
years, that he’s a big fan,” Pagani recalled, in the bemused tone of someone
who doesn’t hear that often. “I was
like ... okay!”
Pagani recited everything he remembered about that day, and the two struck
up an online friendship.
But Pagani can’t bring himself to accept Clendenin’s premise. The conspiracy theory, Pagani said, betrays not just
his better judgment but that of most of
Kaufman’s nearest and dearest.
“I know people at the wake in Long
Island literally leaned over the casket and
said, ‘Andy, if you’re faking, please stop,’”
he said. “I wish he had been faking, but I
just don’t think it’s possible.”
“Unless he, Elvis and Jim Morrison
are all giggling up their sleeves somewhere,” there’s no reason to believe he’s
still alive, says Merle Kessler, a hoaxer
who guest-starred on a variety show
with Kaufman in 1976. “What would
be the point of it?”
A LIVING LEGACY
The point, the disciples claim, is that
Kaufman wanted less fame, not more.
HUFFINGTON
06.16.13
Kaufman
“disciple” Frank
Nora hosted
the “Andy
Kaufman Press
Conference,”
a 2008 event
staged by
Maddox.
To understand why and how he did
what they insist he did, they’ll tell you
to first understand Maddox.
In 2008, Kaufman was again supposed to surface. This time it would
be at an “Andy Kaufman Press Conference” in a hotel in Jersey. Maddox, who
planned the conference, asked Nora, the
podcaster, if he would host.
A few invites went out to the press (to
those on the “weird” news beat, Nora
said). Before the proceedings, someone
knocked on Nora’s room door. A man