15 Behind-the-Scenes Facts About “Taxi”

Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 15 Behind-the-Scenes Facts About Taxi.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. TONY DANZA WAS “DISCOVERED” IN THE BOXING RING.
In the mid-1970s “Tough” Tony Danza was a professional boxer who trained at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. Gleason’s was home to many famous fighters, and the go-to place for filmmakers and authors who were researching the sport. That was how producers Larry Gordon and Joel Silver happened to be ringside one night when Danza knocked out Billy Perez and they invited him to audition for Walter Hill’s The Warriors, which they were producing. He was just about ready to ink a deal with them, too, when James L. Brooks called and asked him to read for the part of a boxer on his upcoming sitcom, Taxi.

9. KAUFMAN’S CONTRACT STIPULATED THAT HIS ALTER EGO, TONY CLIFTON, WAS GIVEN A SEPARATE CONTRACT.
Tony Clifton was another of Kaufman’s characters, a sleazy, obnoxious Vegas lounge-lizard. Kaufman insisted not only that Tony Clifton be written into several Taxi episodes, he also insisted that Clifton be treated as a separate and unique entity, with his own contract, dressing room, and parking spot. Kaufman also required that all the staff and actors address him as “Tony,” never “Andy.”

Clifton was cast as Louie’s brother in the episode “A Full House for Christmas,” and he didn’t endear himself to the cast when he arrived late and then retreated to his dressing room for over an hour to have very loud sex with two prostitutes he had brought with him. When rehearsals finally got underway, Tony kept changing the dialogue and announced that he’d written parts for his hooker friends as well. Jeff Conaway stormed off the set and Judd Hirsch got into a shouting match with Tony that ended up with punches thrown. Ed. Weinberger summoned security guards to escort Tony Clifton off the Paramount lot, which Andy Kaufman later stated had been his entire purpose behind that bit of “theater.”

10. REVEREND JIM’S LOOPY CHARACTER WAS ORIGINALLY ASSIGNED TO TONY.
The evolution of the show’s characters got a little confusing: In the beginning, Phil Ryan (the boxer) was supposed to be somewhat punch drunk and dim-witted. When Tony Danza was hired, the producers decided that he was more convincing playing a young, somewhat naive and innocent type, rather than a confused bumbler. Problem was, Randall Carver had already been cast as John Burns, a wide-eyed country bumpkin new to New York City. As season one progressed, the producers realized that the two characters were too similar and their lines were almost interchangeable. So John Burns was written out after the first season and Christopher Lloyd, who played 1960s drug casualty Reverend Jim Ignatowski, was added to the cast to provide the eccentric goofiness originally intended for Tony Banta.