Even with a career spanning five decades and with dozens of projects under her belt, it is an inarguable fact that Marilu Henner's most recognizable role came early, when she booked a gig appearing in the pilot episode of "Taxi."
It's been a while — the show premiered in 1978 — so you'd be forgiven if you weren't familiar, but it would be an understatement to say that "Taxi" was a pretty big deal in its day. A baker's dozen Emmys notwithstanding, it cemented some of pop culture's most enduring comedic stars, including Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Andy Kaufman, Carol Kane, and Tony Danza.
More than holding her own, Henner played Elaine Nardo, a divorcee and single mother with a passion for the finer things in life, despite difficulties fitting in with New York's upper class. 114 episodes of classic sitcom highs and lows and five Golden Globe nominations later, Henner had more or less solidified herself as television royalty. For the real nerds in the audience, she even played herself playing Elaine in an uncredited cameo in the Andy Kaufman biopic "Man on the Moon," alongside the rest of the cast of "Taxi," nearly 20 years after the show's cameras stopped rolling.
