Marilu Henner helped real-life cab drivers when she wasn't acting on Taxi

Marilu Henner didn’t just play a taxi dispatcher on TV—she practically became one in spirit.

As Elaine Nardo on the hit series Taxi, Henner portrayed a single mom who knew the ins and outs of the cabbie world. But her passion for taxi culture didn’t stop when the cameras quit rolling.

In a 1979 interview with the Tulsa World, Henner revealed that she had fallen in love with the real-life world of taxi drivers—so much so that she wanted to help improve their lives.

According to the interview, Henner learned that cabbies across the country were facing long hours, low pay, and bad attitudes from riders who viewed them as less than.

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She got her information straight from the source: a real-life cab driver.

"They told me they are treated as the lowest of the low, that they are regarded as animals by the public," Henner said.

So, she hatched a plan: to organize meetings with key city officials, including former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, to advocate for better working conditions and policies that would benefit the drivers.

With a little star power pushing the cause, Henner hoped for better conditions for her fellow cabbies, whom she held in the highest regard.

Her role on Taxi gave her the platform and notability to become a larger voice for the cabbies, who had a hard time getting people to notice them.

"People are beginning to recognize me from TV," Henner said. "They come up to me and say, 'Do you have the time?' Or they say, 'Don’t I know you?' They just want to see if it’s me."

She wasn’t just riding shotgun on the taxi experience— she was grabbing the wheel. Her passion for the taxi industry went beyond her role on the show, and she worked tirelessly to ensure that their voices were heard.