HOLLYWOOD — A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame will be unveiled Thursday posthumously honoring Andy Kaufman for a career best remembered for his portrayal of mechanic Latka Gravas on “Taxi” and a variety of outlandish moments.
Schaal was selected to be one of the speakers because she was the 2005 recipient of The Andy Kaufman Award, created by his family to preserve his legacy. It honors “promising cutting-edge artists with fresh and unconventional material, for those willing to take risks with an audience, and for those who do not define themselves by the typical conventions of comedy,” according to its website.The ceremony will be streamed on the Walk of Fame’s website, walkoffame.com.
The star is the 2,761st since the completion of the Walk of Fame in 1961 with the initial 1,558 stars. Kaufman’s act included the character Foreign Man, who spoke in a meek, high-pitched, heavily accented voice and claimed to be from “Caspiar,” a fictional island in the Caspian Sea, play a recording of the theme from the “Mighty Mouse” cartoon show while standing perfectly still, and lip-sync only the line “Here I come to save the day” with great enthusiasm.