Andy Kaufman is well-known for his innovative work in comedy and possibly faking his own death, but he was also quite the trailblazer in matters of the bedroom, according to his best friend and former writing partner Bob Zmuda.
"At first, he was a pioneer in being the first celebrity to support legalized prostitution," Zmuda told HuffPost Live on Tuesday. "He loved the hookers. He thought they were great."
But Kaufman's sense of sexual adventure also applied to his own identity. Lynne Margulies, Zmuda's co-author on "Andy Kaufman: The Truth, Finally" and "the love of [Kaufman's] life," writes in the book about how she discovered Kaufman's bisexuality. Zmuda told HuffPost Live:
They moved to San Francisco, to the Castro District. [Lynne] would go, 'Andy, do you know what the Castro District is?' [He'd say], 'Oh yeah, no, they got a good cookie store down the street.' Cookie store? Then he'd be gone for like three, four hours at a time. And she loved him. She finally confronted him and said, 'Listen, I'm not pointing fingers. It's OK' -- because I think Lynne herself was kind of bisexual. She said, 'Andy, listen, you're with the hookers already. I have no problem with that as long as you come home with me at the end of the night.' They had a very open relationship like that. And she finally drew out of him the fact that he said he was bisexual.
Kaufman knew that his sexuality and sexual choices would be a "career-killer" at the time, but he was more concerned about his family: He made Zmuda and Margulies pledge they would not speak publicly about it until both of Kaufman's parents were dead.
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