Now that urban legend has resurfaced, with a small group of fans believing he's alive and living in Albuquerque.
Kaufman was considered by some as less of a comedian and more of a performance artist who wanted to make the audience question reality.
Some say, if anyone could pull off faking his own cancer death 29 years ago it would be Andy Kaufman.
“I do find it fascinating and I think there's a very strong possibility that this could be for real,” said Edgewood-based writer Jack Bristow.
Bristow is part of a group of fans recently interviewed by the Huffington Post who explain in detail why some believe Kaufman has created a whole different life in the Land of Enchantment.
“He told people he was going to fake his death before it happened, years before,” Bristow said.
As the story goes, fans say Kaufman has a biological son, known as Stephen Maddox , who spent years trying to track down his father. Maddox dedicated a website to it and eventually tracked him down in Albuquerque two years ago.
“He was having surgery, supposedly, and he finally guilted him into seeing him once - that's how the story goes,” he said.
They say he created this cryptic video and posted it online after Kaufman apparently didn't want anything to do with him.
It shows a man walking through a parking lot full of cars with New Mexico license plates and walking by an Albuquerque-looking apartment complex.
But it's one particular clip that causes the most speculation, fans say Maddox says it show Kaufman at work in Albuquerque 2011.
“I don't know if it's him or not. But that one black and white one where it shows his face, it looks like it could possibly be him,” Bristow said.
It's not the first time the New Mexico theory has come up.
A few years ago, he was rumored to be living in Taos .
In 2005, someone claimed to have see Andy Kaufman panhandling near an Albuquerque Walmart, something Kaufman was known to do in his act.
Fans also say if there is someone living in Albuquerque who was formerly known as Andy Kaufman, there's no evidence he wants to be revealed.
If he were alive today, he’d be 64 years old.
For Kaufman believers, the legends and the questions continue.
