"Let me through back a question. What about all of the legal
implications? The settlement of the estate--clearly the lawyers
and judges didn't think it was a hoax--even criminal felony
charges that would be brought?
"I'm not saying it couldn't have been--but what's your opinion
on the legal aspects?"
__________________________
Yeah, this is a toughie. I generally do not believe the "deathhoax" thing, except on every third Thursday (or whenever.)
All I can think is - $$$.
When Andy wanted to see a project through, no expense was too great - an extra suite for a non-existant Tony Clifton, cheap tix for his Carnegie Hall show or college tours, whatever.
He ~did~ earn quite a bit through his career, and he chose not to live lavishly - if andything, his living arrangements were sparse.
NOW, if he actually did have cancer, a lot of his dough would have had to have been spent on the treatment. BUT if it was a hoax, that same money could have gone to doing ~whatever~ was necessary to get the proper papers signed, etc.
---------------------
The other end of the "legal ramifications" part would come up when Andy actually DID die, in this hypothesis, unexpectedly.
All I can think of to counter that is: in many other countries, the standards are not as stringent as ours. If he chose to take up residence in a "foreign" land, it may be possible that, when he died, he was simply accepted to be who he said he was, and buried without investigation.
He could have died in a way that rendered him unrecognizable. If he died, for instance, in a fire, there would be no fingerprinting or close examination of his body. Without running a dental check, no one would have known it was him.
And, in this theory, there is no way to tell how long he would have been in "hiding" before actually dying. It may have been a year, it may have been a month. Who is to say how long he had to pass himself off as "dead" before actually becoming dead?