Andy Kaufman And 6 Others Who May Not Have Died

Earlier this week, a woman walked onto the stage at the 9th annual Andy Kaufman Awards and dropped every single jaw in the room by announcing a) she is Andy Kaufman’s daughter and b) the legendary comedian is still alive and kicking. Within hours, news of the utterly bizarre appearance was widely circulated on the Internet. Not long after that, video even emerged, as well as rumors about the alleged daughter’s real identity.

I’m pretty confident the entire stunt was one elaborate hoax. More than that, I’m extremely confident Kaufman himself would have loved it. His life was a long series of wacky shenanigans, many of which were designed merely to screw with people’s heads. His first appearance on Saturday Night Live is a great example, as is his legendary fight with Jerry Lawler on Letterman. Because of that crazed spirit and the strange circumstances surrounding his death, we’re probably in for a Kaufman-related conspiracy every half decade or so for the rest of our lives.

He’s not the only dead celebrity who people have been convinced was very much alive, though. History is filled with plenty of examples of people who won’t go peacefully into the grave. Thanks to this latest bout of Kaufman whispers, now seems like as good of a time as ever to explore some of these crazy rumors. Here are seven famous faces who some think may not have died when we initially suspected.

Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur was shot in a drive-by on Las Vegas Boulevard following a heavyweight boxing match between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon on September 13, 1996. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of witnesses heard the gunshots and saw a still unidentified white Cadillac speed away. The rapper was hit several times amidst the haze of bullets, and seven days later, he died at the hospital. The case is officially unsolved, but Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chuck Philips pointed to problems between Compton gangs as the motive behind his murder in what many consider to be the foremost analysis on the subject.

So, why the hell do people think he’s still alive? Well, Tupac recorded a wealth of material prior to his death. Most of it was unreleased and has since slowly hit the market in various forms. His manager, Suge Knight, who was in the car at the time and was grazed by a bullet, has made several comments over the years that seem to imply Tupac is still alive, and there have been several pictures/ videos that emerged after his death showing the rapper wearing shoes that weren’t released until later. Beyond that, there’s a bunch of complicated nonsense about number patterns and Pac changing his name to Makaveli not long before the supposed murder.

Ruling: Tupac is almost certainly dead, but at least he has a hologram.

Elvis Presley

Poor Elvis spent most of the mid-1970s slowly dying. Taking a zoo of prescription drugs, touring relentlessly, gaining weight and stressing out over failed relationships, he put his body through utter hell until it finally gave up in the summer of 1977. As a selfish goodbye present, the King’s cousin took a picture of his corpse and sold it to The National Enquirer. It still holds the record for the highest selling edition of all-time, but apparently, Presley’s death picture wasn’t enough to convince his legion of fans that he had actually kicked the bucket.

Elvis sightings began almost immediately after the musician was laid to rest. Someone tried to dig up his body to investigate, and scores of people began writing in to their local newspapers and various tabloids that they’d seen the legend in the strangest places. Out of the brouhaha came societies dedicated to discussing sightings and even a street called Elvis Lives Lane in Ottawa. The fervor gets a little louder at times, but it’s never completely quieted since 1977, nor will it for decades to come.

Ruling: The man was a drug addict with horrible eating habits and extravagant taste. He needed a healthy supply of money and peanut butter and banana sandwiches to live, all of which he had readily available at Graceland. There was no reason for him to fake his own death and even less of a reason for him to stay hidden for decades.

DB Cooper

On November 24, 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper passed a note to a flight attendant informing her that he had a bomb in his possession. He wanted the airline a) to pay him $200,000 in unmarked bills and b) to procure him four parachutes. His demands were later met, and following a pickup of the money, and a refueling stop, he ordered the plane back in the air. At some point, probably over Washington, Cooper strapped on his parachute and jumped out of the plane and into history. He was never seen again.

To this day, the Cooper case remains the only unsolved skyjacking in the history of the United States. A small portion of the ransom money was discovered in a river several years later, but how it could have possibly gotten there is unclear. In the time since, dozens of possible suspects have been investigated, books have been written and wild theories have been floated, none of which explain who the hijacker was and whether or not he perished during the getaway skydive.

Ruling: There is probably a seventy percent chance Cooper died while parachuting and a thirty percent chance he landed and got away with some of the money. For his sake, I hope it was the latter. Of all the reasons to disappear, a badass robbery is definitely near the top of the list.

Jim Morrison

Conspiracies about whether or not people actually died often emerge when those involved can’t really get their story straight concerning what happened. Such was the case with Jim Morrison who died of “natural causes” in Paris in 1971. Pamela Courson, longtime girlfriend of the Doors frontman, has given multiple accounts of what happened, but most seem to involve him coughing up blood and overdosing in a bathtub on heroin that he may have thought was cocaine. Others close to the singer have claimed the actual OD took place at a nightclub, and best of all, the Doors manager Danny Sugerman claimed in his book that the idea of Morrison faking his own death wasn’t “as far fetched as it might seem”, whatever the hell that means.

Because Morrison had gained weight and grown a beard for certain periods during his last few years, some fans are convinced he could have slipped off in the night without the general public knowing any different. If he did, that would explain all the inconsistencies with the stories on the ground and all the times people have supposedly seen the Lizard King in the years since.

Ruling: Like so many people on this list, there aren’t many reasons why Morrison would want to stay missing at this point. He could get the Doors back together and make a killing on a world tour. I mean seriously. With all due respect to Lady Gaga, how much more money would people pay to see a suddenly alive Jim Morrison? Plus, I’m not really concerned with the people on the ground having different stories because many of them were drug addicts at the time with horrible reasoning skills and memories.

Jimmy Hoffa

Hoffa was a union official for the Teamsters that was heavily involved with the mafia. He went for a meeting outside the Machus Red Fox in the summer of 1975, and he hasn’t been seen since. At the time, many thought Hoffa may have skipped out on his life in order to avoid conflicts over his attempts to regain power with the unions in Detroit. Then again, a whole lot more thought he was straight up murdered for the exact same reasons. Either way, Hoffa hasn’t been seen since, and every few years, the government digs somewhere new to try and find his body.

The reasons behind Hoffa’s absence are quite clear. He had more enemies than everyone else on this list put together, and many of his had a whole lot of power, whether they were involved with the mob or were in the White House. Seriously, he once sued Richard Nixon. If he did escape, he did so at exactly the right time. If he didn’t, he’s encased in cement somewhere within two hundred miles of Detroit and will probably never be found.

Ruling: If Hoffa were still alive today, he would be one hundred-years-old. If he lived a healthy, stress free live, the odds are against him making it that long, but I think the chances of him simply disappearing are slim to none. That man craved attention like most of us do water. He needed power and the spotlight, two things people can’t get if they’re hiding out in Mexico. Plus, he was legally allowed to hold office again after 1980; so, he would have wanted to celebrate that milestone.

Andy Kaufman

Prior to Andy Kaufman’s death of lung cancer in 1984, the comedian told many close friends that he was interested in faking his death. Such a wild scheme would be greeted by confusion or arguments if uttered by most people, but for Andy, that was probably the most normal thing that ever came out of his mouth. During his network television comedy special, he intentionally screwed with the picture to make people watching at home think there was something wrong with their televisions. His entire life was meant to be a jolt to the audience’s system; so, why not make his death be the same thing?

So rampant are the rumors that Kaufman faked his own death that his very underrated biopic Man On The Moon actually leaves the question open to debate. In addition, a ton of people have claimed they’ve seen the comedian over the years, and even his own brother argued he got a mysterious letter from the comedian a few years back. Given all that, it’s really not a surprise everyone has been so engrossed in the story of his supposed daughter who recently claimed he’s still alive.

Ruling: That woman is almost definitely an actress, and Kaufman almost definitely died of lung cancer. Unlike most of the people on this list, he would have the willpower to wait out his return for a long time, but three decades is just absurd. He would have chosen like the ten year mark. That being said, I would buy him being alive a whole lot faster than the musicians.

Amelia Earhart

There’s no death hoax here. Earhart definitely didn’t intentionally skip town in order to live in seclusion, but there are quite a few researchers out there who believe the noted aviatrix didn’t die when her plane went down on July 2, 1937. In fact, many of them have a very similar theory as to what happened: she ran out of fuel and was able to crash land near Gardner Island, where she survived for some number of years.

Makeshift tools have been found in roughly the right location, and supposedly some pieces of metal discovered are similar to what would have been in the legendary woman’s aircraft. When the other option is simply the unknown, there are many who prefer that more tangible explanation for what happened after the crash, but despite about a dozen research missions to the area, not enough conclusive evidence has ever been discovered to say Earhart definitely survived her crash.

Ruling: People were so invested in Earhart getting home safely that there’s almost no way she didn’t really crash. Considering plane accidents aren’t exactly like falling off a trampoline, I think it’s likely she went into the ocean and died, but I certainly think it’s possible she carved out a few good years Cast Away style. She was a scrappy lady. You can tell by the goofy looks on her face in every picture she ever took.