Jim Carrey stars at Andy Kaufman in "Man on the Moon."

There have been various attempts to explain why the strange and funny man went to Memphis, Tenn.

He was crazy (not "ha ha" crazy, but seriously insane). He was washed up and looking for work. He was using those poor fools for yet another one of his stunts.

Those explanations are much more complicated than need be. With anything involving Andy Kaufman, people tend to seek deeper meaning. But sometimes a banana is just a banana. And sometimes wrestling is just wrestling.

"Andy Kaufman loved wrestling," said Danny Davis, now 17 years removed from those chaotic nights at Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, which was to hardcore wrestling what New York's CBGB was to punk rock. "He had a lot of respect for wrestling and the people in wrestling. He knew Memphis was the place where just about anything could happen."

Indeed.

In the intervening years, the story of Kaufman's descent into Memphis madness has been elevated to show-biz legend. At the same time, Kaufman has been elevated to a certain holiness that is reserved for artists misunderstood in their own time. Formal confirmation of Kaufman's place in the pop-culture pantheon comes with Wednesday's release of "Man on the Moon," director Milos Forman's interpretation of the performer's abbreviated life.

It's a big film from an important director ("Amadeus," "The People Vs. Larry Flynt") and a major star in the lead role -- Jim Carrey, who worships Kaufman like a god. Fifteen years after his death, Kaufman is finally getting the star treatment.

There was none of that in 1981. Before the endless college dorm room and coffeehouse debates (genius, or madman?), before the R.E.M. song, before the Forman-Carrey bio-pic, Kaufman was an erratic comic playing a second-tier character on "Taxi," a TV show in ratings freefall. His movies bombed. His act was getting stale.

Which may have been the spark for Kaufman's most outrageous performance of all. A curious exile took him all over the South, where pro wrestling was still in all its seedy, barnstorming, pre-Wrestlemania, pre-pay-per-view glory.

"He was running around wrestling women," said Davis, who himself spent 17 years on the professional wrestling circuit before opening a wrestling school in Jeffersonville, Ind. "He was calling himself the 'intergender' champion. He took it very seriously."

Pro wrestler Jerry "The King" Lawler and comic Andy Kaufman squared off in the ring in Louisville in 1983.

Kaufman had been drawn to the theatrics of professional wrestling as a child in the 1960s. In "Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman," writer Bill Zehme said Kaufman saw parallels between his edgy comedy act, which was intended to anger audiences as much as amuse them, and professional wrestling, where a well-played villain could turn an arena full of people into a poisonous, bestial mob.

Davis said Kaufman approached scores of promoters, looking for someone willing to legitimize his bizarre act, but was rejected again and again. "Nobody wanted to talk to him," Davis said.

Except Jarrett Promotions, a Memphis outfit that employed Davis -- who himself dropped out of a well-paying job running a discount store to enter the ring -- and, more important, Jerry "The King" Lawler.

It was a fitting title. Lawler owned Memphis and much of the South. He decided he wanted to own Kaufman as well, said Davis, who was managing The King's career at that time. The opportunity to exploit a TV star, even from a failing show, was too good to pass up.

"Jerry Lawler was always very, very smart when it came to creative ideas that could pack an arena," said Davis, now 47. "Jarrett Promotions saw money in this."

The plan was hatched. Kaufman would challenge women to wrestle before the agitated crowds at Mid-South Coliseum. Lawler would watch this spectacle, and grow angrier and angrier at what he saw. From the start, Davis said, it was clear that Kaufman knew how to play the wrestling game.

The whole package was calculated to prod the crowd into a frenzy. Kaufman needled the crowd relentlessly. He crowed about his Hollywood sophistication, mocking them as hillbillies and bigots. He was rough on his female opponents. He generally made a mockery of things.

"The fans were always irate -- they wanted to kill him," Davis said, admiringly. "He had them in the palm of his hands. . . . He knew how to push people's buttons."

In late November 1981, Lawler "decided" that he had had enough. He took on one of Kaufman's opponents, a woman named Foxy Brown, and vowed to train her for a rematch. Kaufman took the bait and challenged Lawler himself. One of wrestling's great rivalries was set -- Lawler vs. Kaufman. The hometown hero vs. the Hollywood loudmouth.

Danny Davis, shown above at right at his wrestling school in Jeffersonville, Ind. With him is Jim Cornette, who helps develop young wrestlers. Photo by MICHAEL CLEVENGER

"The only place crazy enough to do this was Memphis," said Jim Cornette, who used to photograph Memphis matches for wrestling magazines before moving on to a career as an executive with the World Wrestling Federation. "They were known for doing some strange things."

Outside the ring, Kaufman was in awe of men such as Lawler, Davis said. He seemed to view his newfound wrestling career as a privilege.

"He was the nicest man you would ever want to meet. He did not treat this as a joke," Davis said. "He was very gentle. You'd think somebody with that kind of star power would be snooty. But he was a genuine, good human being."

After months of buildup, Lawler and Kaufman finally met on April 5, 1982, before 12,000 people at Mid-South Coliseum. By now, the rest of America was starting to hear about Kaufman's curious career turn. Kaufman promoted the bout on "Late Night With David Letterman" while, Davis recalled, Lawler tried to figure out how to win the match without hurting the wiry comic.

Unsuccessfully, as it turns out. Zehme attempted to capture the scene in "Lost in the Funhouse:"

Andy went into the ring . . . to a tremendous chorus of boos. For the first five minutes . . . he was dancing around, jumping like a monkey, got out of the ring to protect himself, and after five minutes Jerry Lawler offered to let Andy put him into a headlock. So Andy got Lawler in a headlock. Lawler picked him up and threw him right on his back on the canvas. He hit pretty hard. Then Lawler grabbed him and gave him a pile-driver, which is an illegal hold. . . . He did this twice. It looked like Andy's neck was broken.

The pile-driver. Lawler's signature finishing move, wherein a dazed opponent is picked up by the legs, his head clenched between Lawler's thighs. Lawler sits hard on the canvas, "pile-driving" his opponent like the support columns for a new Wal-Mart. It is a real crowd-pleaser.

"When he dropped him, the place just went 'Whoosh,' " said Cornette, recalling the eruption from the crowd. "They had been waiting for that for weeks."

Jerry "The King" Lawler and comic Andy Kaufman have a smackdown on "Late Night With David Letterman." While reports at the time played the television scuffle for real, it was set up beforehand.

Kaufman lay motionless on the canvas. He was not kidding.

"There's only one way to hit the canvas -- hard," Davis said. "He just laid there. It was like 30 minutes, without moving. It was just chaos. As we were waiting for the ambulance, I gave Lawler a classic line. I turned to him and said that he ought to say something like, 'Instead of an ambulance, maybe he should call a taxi.' He loved it. He takes the mike and says this to the crowd. Everybody went nuts."

Kaufman suffered a sprained neck. Within weeks, he was back. His place in the soap opera was sealed. He made amends with Lawler, then secretly teamed with Lawler's rival, Jimmy Hart, to execute a double-cross. It culminated with a joint appearance on Letterman, where an agitated Lawler smacked Kaufman, who responded by throwing hot coffee, to the host's dismay.

As always, it was all set up beforehand. But the fewer people who knew, the better, Davis said.

"The only two people who knew were Lawler and Andy Kaufman," Davis said. "Andy told him to rattle his teeth. So Lawler slapped the ---- out of him." The duo would perform their schtick several more times, including a match at Louisville Gardens in 1983, before the rivalry ran its course, as they always do. Kaufman went back to Hollywood and tried to resume his career. He got kicked off "Saturday Night Live" (another masterful stunt). "Taxi" was finally canceled. Within two years, he was dead from cancer at age 35.

Wrestling, of course, only got bigger. The same promoters who refused to work with Kaufman were, by the mid-1980s, recruiting oddball celebrities and staging their own bizarre spectacles. The WWF held the first of many "Wrestlemanias." Wrestlers were featured on MTV, part of singer Cyndi Lauper's bizarre entourage. Hulk Hogan was inflicted on the world.

Given that they saw all this unfold, Davis and Cornette are naturally curious about how this will shape up in "Man on the Moon." "Nobody knew this would mushroom into something big," said Cornette, who today works with Davis developing young wrestlers from the WWF. "We just got a kick out of seeing this eccentric TV star who wanted so badly to be a wrestler."

It's strange to think of Kaufman as one of the men responsible for wrestling's fin de sicle resurgence, but Davis insists that some of the credit go where it's due.

"People started to see the value of marketing. That's when you started to see the celebrities," mused Davis, whose wrestlers perform in metropolitan Louisville under the Ohio Valley Wrestling banner. "To this day, people in Memphis still talk about Andy Kaufman."

Andy Kaufman: Genius, or madman?

"He was never afraid to go out and try something new. He takes his life in his hands." -- Actor/writer Carl Reiner

"His choice of ways to get laughs were choices no one else ever would think of. It was humor from wanting to kill him, from the nerve, from the audacity of what he did. That's how he got his laughs." -- Producer James Burrows ("Cheers," "Taxi," "The Simpsons")

"Andy was an absolute original. An uncompromised artist who marched through his short, strange life to a very different drummer." -- Actor Marilu Henner

"He was like avant-garde theater transported to a nightclub stage." -- Actor Richard Belzer

"Comedians would stand in the back and go: 'I gotta build a statue, and it's gotta be of him!' " -- Actor Jim Carrey

"In Andy there is something underneath the playfulness, a sense of danger, a kind of general anger, as if the way we wearily come to see the world is simply insufficient." -- Actor Marty Feldman

"He wanted to make audiences work, to rethink the obvious." -- Comedian Elayne Boosler

"Andy thinks like I did about wrestling. I didn't care if you loved me or hated me. . . . As long as you intrigue your fans." -- Pro wrestler Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers

"Sometimes, when you look Andy in the eyes, you get a feeling somebody else is driving." -- Talk show host David Letterman

Kaufman on Kaufman

"I just want real reactions. I want people to laugh from the gut, be sad from the gut or get angry from the gut."

"While all the other kids were out playing ball and stuff, I used to stay in my room and imagine that there was a camera in the wall. And I used to really believe that I was putting on a television show and that it was going out to somewhere in the world."

"If I play my cards right, I could bring network wrestling back to TV. Unfortunately, to most people, wrestling is a laughingstock. But fortunately, I'm reaching people who otherwise wouldn't watch it."

"I am not a comic, I have never told a joke. I don't even watch comedians. The comedian's promise is that he will go out there and make you laugh with him. I've never done that in my life. My only promise is that I will try to entertain you as best I can. I can manipulate people's reactions. There are different kinds of laughter. Gut laughter is where you don't have a choice, you've got to laugh. Gut laughter doesn't come from the intellect. And it's much harder for me to evoke now, because I'm known. They say, 'Oh wow, Andy Kaufman, he's a really funny guy.' But I'm not trying to be funny. I just want to play with their heads."

"I try to please people, to give them a good time, but I refuse to make my act conform to traditional show-biz standards of entertainment. There's a little voice that says, 'Oh, no, you can't do that, that's breaking all the rules.' That's the voice of show business. Then this other little voice says, 'Try it.' And most of the time, when the voice comes on and says, 'No,' that's the time it works."

"What's real? What's not? That's what I do in my act, test how other people deal with reality."

SOURCE: The Kaufman Chronicles (andykaufman.jvlnet.com/kaufchro.htm)