Andy Kaufman Is Alive, Says His Brother

Andy Kaufman faked his death, says the legendary comic's brother.

According to reports, Kaufman's brother, Michael Kaufman, brought down the house at last week's Andy Kaufman Awards show with a winding tale involving a letter, a favorite restaurant, and this conclusion: Kaufman is alive. And the prankster has a daughter, apparently, who also took the stage, and may or may not be a theater student.

Kaufman is known to have one daughter, Maria Colonna, an occupational therapist living in upstate New York, who occasionally breaks from her life to consult on stories about the mystery of her dad.

But Colonna appears not to have been involved in this latest stunt. The girl who joined Michael Kaufman onstage also reportedly claimed to be 24 years old. If true, that places her birth date after Kaufman's official death date. The funnyman is said to have succumbed to lung cancer at Cedars Sinai hospital, on May 16, 1984.

It's a good time to read HuffPost's profile of the highest-trafficked Kaufman conspiracy site on the web. Our investigation this summer led us down a rabbit hole constructed by one man who claims to know an awful lot about Kaufman. That includes his whereabouts, tracked down (supposedly) to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Of course, where Kaufman's name goes, smoke and mirrors follow. But this new theory sounds enough like the one we heard back in May that we're scratching our heads a bit. Let us know if we're the only ones.

UPDATE: Everyone can calm down. Andy Kaufman's 24-year-old "daughter" is in fact Alexandra Tatarsky, a 23-year-old actress recruited by Michael Kaufman to play the part last week, according to a fresh Smoking Gun report. Tatarsky's real dad is apparently a 58-year-old psychotherapist. And that's a wrap, folks!