Can This Man Come Back? - No one questions Tony Kaye's talent--Jerry Bruckheimer wants to work with him. But his bizarre behavior is not only unappreciated in now-staid Hollywood, it's also unwelcome.

Hollywood loves a comeback story. John Travolta got years of goodwill from his return in "Pulp Fiction." Francis Coppola has resurrected his career over and over. Charlie Sheen just went from a direct-to-video loser to the star of "Spin City." Sly Stallone seems to make a comeback with every movie. If nothing else, the back-from-the-dead angle is a great way to hype a new project.

But when Tony Kaye showed up for breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel the other day, trying to sell me on his comeback story, he tried a different approach. "I think I'm dying," he said, pointing to a blemish on his cheek. "It's been bleeding. I must have some awful skin cancer."

Leave it to Kaye, best known as the conceptual artist turned film director who crashed 'n' burned making the 1998 film "American History X," to pitch a comeback story by announcing that he's dying. The cancer scare was a false alarm. But the British director's career in Hollywood remains on the critical list, the result of his legendarily bizarre behavior during a pitched battle with New Line Cinema over "American History X" that resulted in his berating the studio in a series of trade ads that quoted everyone from John Lennon to Patanjali, the Indian founder of yoga. Kaye unsuccessfully petitioned the Directors Guild to have the film released with a director's credit of Humpty Dumpty.

Since then, Kaye has been persona non grata in Hollywood. He fired his agent. He stopped eating in restaurants: He had black coffee at breakfast, saying, "I don't like having to choose things that take ages to come." Most bizarre of all, for a long time he stopped talking on the phone, forcing people to have conversations with him relayed through a personal assistant.

For example:

Me: "Tony, what do you mean you don't talk on the phone anymore?"

Kaye's assistant: "Tony, what do you mean you don't . . . "

Me (breaking in): "Tony, you've got to be kidding!"

Kaye's assistant (deadpan): "Tony, you've got to be kidding!"

As you can imagine, this Abbott and Costello-style routine quickly scared off all but the most ardent Kaye admirers, the ad agencies who still pay him millions to direct high-profile TV commercials largely shown in England and Europe. In fact, Kaye is going to Miami this week where he will receive the Clio Awards' first lifetime achievement award for his groundbreaking commercials.