Eugene Salomon - Confessions of a New York Taxi Driver

Well, my curiosity was certainly aroused. Who could this Very Important Person be? In a few moments the man in the tuxedo reappeared from the restaurant with another man, also wearing a tux, and two women in fashionable evening dresses. The cause of all the fuss, it turned out, was this other man. He was Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

It was a name you would recognize if you were past a certain age. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, had been a movie star, a leading man, in the 1930s and was the son of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr, himself a big star from the silent movie era. I was familiar with Jr mostly because he was a pitch man for the wool industry and would appear in that capacity in television commercials.

We drove down Columbus Avenue a mere eleven blocks, to Lincoln Center. As Mr Fairbanks opened the door of my cab and stepped out into the plaza there, he was immediately surrounded by photographers snapping away, their strobe lights creating an explosion of brightness in the cool night air. He posed for the paparazzi, flashing a winning smile and looking altogether dapper. Apparently a special event of some kind was being held that night at Lincoln Center and the media were waiting for the stars to arrive.

After I drove away in anonymity, I had some thoughts about this phenomenon of celebrity. Consider this: although the glow of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr’s movie career had faded away nearly fifty years prior to that night, he was still being treated by the mortals around him with the care and adulation that you and I never receive for even a single day in our lives.

No, they are not the same as the rest of us. There is truly a phenomenon at work here. It’s like a force of nature, a type of energy. The physics of mass communications, if you will.

It can be interesting to observe how different celebrities deal with it. Some, like Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, are quite comfortable with it. Others, like John Lennon the two times I saw him on the street, resist it by trying to remain unrecognized behind dark glasses, scarves and various disguises. And then there are those who, like rodeo cowboys riding on the back of a bull, can’t seem to get enough of it and will go out of their way to let you know who they are.

One pleasant Tuesday night in the summer of 1996 I found myself waiting once again in the taxi queue in front of the Bowery Bar in the East Village. The popular Tuesday night party Beige was in full swing there and it was a good place to get a fare during an otherwise slow night shift.

I finally got to the front of the line when a group of rowdy kids, probably too young to have been in there in the first place, emerged from the bar, playfully pushing and shoving each other as they approached my cab. Other than the fact that they were loud and goofing around, I noticed three things: 1) one of them was smoking a cigar that was bigger than his face, 2) one of them was a model-gorgeous female and the others were all guys, and 3) there were five of them.

Now there were two problems here. Cigars, of course, are a no-no in a taxicab. And New York City taxis by law are only allowed to carry four passengers. But this group was probably drunk, definitely raucous and they had jumped into my cab so quickly that I decided that playing taxicab cop was too much of an effort and decided to just drive them where they wanted to go without a protest. Three of the guys and the girl crammed themselves onto the back seat and a fellow who must have weighed in excess of three hundred pounds joined me in the front. And off we went.

Our destination was a club called Spy on Greene Street in Soho, a short ride. I opened the windows to allow for some ventilation of the cigar smoke and was being pretty much oblivious to the laughter and clamor surrounding me when a male voice from the back seat suddenly grabbed my attention.

‘Hey, driver,’ the voice said.

‘Yeah?’ I called back.

‘Hey, you know, this is Leonardo DiCaprio you’ve got back here!’

‘It is?’

‘Yeah!’

‘Leonardo Di who ?’

‘Leonardo DiCaprio !’

‘So – who is Leonardo DiCaprio?’ I asked. This was before Titanic and I’d never heard of him.

A second voice belonging to the blond-haired kid smoking the cigar now joined in the conversation.

‘Don’t you know who I am?’ he cried out.

‘Uhhh… nooo…’

‘I’m an actor, man!’

‘Oh.’

‘Did you see This Boy’s Life ?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I’ve heard of that movie,’ I said, ‘but I haven’t seen it. You were in that?’

‘I played with De Niro, man!’

‘Wow! Really!’

‘How about What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? Did you see that?’

‘No, sorry, I didn’t see that one, either. You were in that?’

‘Yeah!’

I was certainly out of the loop. I would have liked to have discussed some of his work with him, but I hadn’t seen any of the kid’s movies.

‘Are you in anything that’s coming out soon?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, we just finished Romeo and Juliet,’ he said.

Well, here was something we could talk about. I know my Romeo and Juliet well and a lively conversation ensued between the two of us about this new version.

‘Who plays Mercutio?’ I wanted to know. ‘Who plays Tybalt? It’s set in modern times? Really! Hmmm… I wonder if that will work,’ and so on.

Our discussion continued until we arrived at Spy. As everyone else piled out of the cab, Leonardo DiWho surprised me. He stayed inside and started asking me questions about what it’s like to be a taxi driver.

Now, this impressed me – a lot. It brought to mind the difference between interesting versus interested. I don’t think there’s anything wrong about trying to be interesting, but I think it’s more admirable by far to be interested. For one thing, being interested makes you smarter. You will learn things by being interested. And, in addition to that, being interested gives the people you are talking to the feeling that they are important and that you care about them. It bolsters their self-esteem and makes them stronger. In my opinion, simply being interested is one of humanity’s most noble virtues. It doesn’t have to be a dog eat dog world.

So here was this kid smoking a cigar, a movie star, who you might expect to be the epitome of being interesting , instead turning the tables and being interested. What a breath of fresh air.

‘Who was the biggest celebrity tipper you ever had in your cab?’ he asked me.

‘Believe it or not, it was John McEnroe,’ I replied. ‘He gave me double the meter.’

‘Well,’ Leonardo DiWho said, ‘I’m gonna give you triple the meter!’

And he did.

I had a feeling this kid was going places and I didn’t want to forget his name, so I wrote it down on my trip sheet. My daughter, Suzy, was fourteen at the time and I’d never once been able to impress her by dropping the names of any of the celebrities I’ve had in my cab. Nevertheless, when I saw Suzy the next day, I told her I had a celebrity in my cab the previous night.

Looking down at my trip sheet, I read the name with some difficulty.

‘Have you ever heard of this guy… Leonardo… Di… uh… Cap… rio?’

A shriek came out of the mouth of my daughter that nearly shattered the wine glasses in the cabinet. This was followed by moans of the deepest anguish when it was learned that I had failed to obtain his autograph, a sin for which I have never been forgiven.

Oh, yes. She knew who he was.

Another question I’m frequently asked is, ‘How many celebrities have you had in your cab?’ I’ve wondered about this myself, so I made a list of every celebrity, big or small, I could think of who’d ever climbed into the back seat. By ‘big’ I mean a major star, like Leonardo DiCaprio. ‘Small’ would be someone who is known only locally, like a radio DJ or broadcast news personality.