Every once in a while I hop in a cab or rideshare and wonder if the person behind the wheel is going to end up in a history book someday. It is not as far fetched as it sounds. Quite a few well known creative people kept the lights on by driving taxis or other cars for hire before anyone knew their names.

This one started for me with my favorite composer, Steve Reich. I knew he had driven a cab in his lean years, which made me wonder who else took fares on the way to fame. As it turns out, there is a small but fascinating group of future composers, playwrights, actors, and rock stars who spent time in the driver’s seat.

Let us take a ride through some of those stories, and clear up a couple of persistent myths along the way.

Minimalist Masters Behind the Wheel

Steve Reich: Tape loops, taxis, and a rear end fender bender

Before Steve Reich was a towering figure of minimalist music, he was a working musician doing whatever it took to survive. For a while that meant driving a cab, first in San Francisco and later after returning to New York.

Reich has talked about inching forward in traffic one day, zoning out, and gently rolling into the car in front of him. That little mishap helped convince him that maybe the post office was a better day job than taxi driving. It is a very unromantic detail for a revered composer, which is exactly why it feels so human.

Philip Glass: Premier at the Met, shift in the cab

Philip Glass might be the most famous example of the “composer by night, cabbie by day” lifestyle. In the late 1960s and 1970s, he supported himself in New York as a taxi driver, plumber, and general blue collar worker while writing the music that would later make him world famous.

When his opera Einstein on the Beach premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1976, he was still driving a cab. There are stories of audience members climbing into his taxi after the show, recognizing him as the composer, and assuming there must be some kind of prank going on. He has said more than once that he kept those day jobs well past the point where most people would have quit, partly because he did not trust the new fame to last.

Playwrights, Actors, and Other Storytellers Who Drove Cabs

David Mamet: Chicago cab as writing lab

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and filmmaker David Mamet had a string of odd jobs before his scripts took off. One of those early gigs was driving a cab in Chicago, which he has described as accidental training for his later work.

He has mentioned watching how people argued in the back seat, how they exaggerated, lied, and hustled. If you have ever read or watched Glengarry Glen Ross and felt like the characters talk as if they are in a constant street level negotiation, the cab driver chapter of his life probably deserves some of the credit.

Jimmy Smits: From cab to courtrooms and galaxies

Before L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, and a role in the Star Wars prequels, actor Jimmy Smits reportedly drove a cab in the 1980s to make ends meet.

Some taxi industry write ups have highlighted him as an example of how a pretty ordinary job can intersect with a very unordinary career path. It is one of those details that fits weirdly well. If you spend years playing lawyers, cops, and politicians, it probably helps to have spent time listening to real people talk in the small hours of the night.

Danny Glover: San Francisco cabbie turned activist

Danny Glover is best known as Roger Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon movies, but before that he worked as a cab driver in San Francisco.

Later, after he became famous, he used that history to shine a spotlight on taxi drivers who refused to pick up Black passengers in New York City. His activism helped push New York officials to crack down on that kind of discrimination with tougher enforcement. His time as a cabbie did not just pay the bills. It gave him first hand experience he could point to when he had a larger platform.

Larry David: Chauffeur and limo driver on the way to Seinfeld

Before Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David had one of the more eclectic pre fame resumes you will ever see. He did stand up, joined the army reserve, sold bras, and worked as a professional driver, including stints as a chauffeur and limo driver in New York.

Some trivia lists lump him in with taxi drivers, although the documented jobs are more on the limo and chauffeur side of the industry. Either way, the idea of Larry David quietly fuming in New York traffic while driving strangers around feels almost too on the nose.

Rock Stars at the Wheel

Paul Stanley: KISS before the makeup

According to several taxi industry write ups, KISS frontman Paul Stanley once held down what his parents considered a “real job” as a taxi driver in New York before the band took off.

It is not hard to imagine a young Paul Stanley dropping someone off at Madison Square Garden, looking up at the marquee, and daydreaming about seeing his own name up there. Years later, KISS would fill arenas like that on a regular basis. Not a bad upgrade from trying to catch fares outside them.

The Almost Cabbies: De Niro, DeVito, and Others

Robert De Niro: Method acting with a hack license

Robert De Niro is often listed as a “former cab driver,” but the story is a little more specific than that. For Taxi Driver in 1976, he got a real New York taxi license and spent weeks actually driving a cab around the city to prepare for the role of Travis Bickle.

By that point he had already won an Oscar for The Godfather Part II, so it was not a pre fame survival job. It is more of a method acting footnote that later trivia lists turned into “De Niro was a taxi driver before he was famous,” which is not quite true.

Danny DeVito: Played one on TV, never drove one for a living

Another common misconception is that Danny DeVito used to be a cab driver because he played dispatcher Louie De Palma on the sitcom Taxi. A taxi company blog that surveyed real ex cabbies actually calls out DeVito and De Niro as examples of stars who only played cab drivers on screen and never drove a taxi for a living.

In other words, Louie De Palma stayed safely in the studio.

Owning a cab versus driving one for rent money

There is a separate category of celebrities who bought London black cabs later in life simply because they liked the vehicles, not because they needed the job. Prince Philip, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kate Moss, Stephen Fry, and even Laurence Olivier have all been reported as proud black cab owners at one time or another.

That is a fun detail, but it is different from someone grinding out shifts in a taxi or limo just to pay rent while they chase an artistic career.

Rod Stewart and the rumor mill

Rod Stewart is another name that sometimes gets pulled into the “former cabbie” story. The more reliable accounts of his early life focus on him doing odd jobs like some work at Highgate Cemetery and trying to make it as a footballer before music took over, not driving a taxi.

He might have ridden in a lot of cabs on tour, but there is no strong evidence he ever drove one for a living.

Why Taxi Driver Backstories Keep Popping Up

There is something very appealing about the idea of a future composer, playwright, or movie star driving you home from a night out and then disappearing back into the anonymous flow of traffic. Taxi and limo work sits right at the intersection of everyday life and endless story material. You meet people from every background, you hear things you are not supposed to hear, and you spend a lot of time alone with your thoughts between fares.

For Steve Reich and Philip Glass, those hours behind the wheel helped subsidize music that did not fit neatly into the classical world of the time. For David Mamet, Jimmy Smits, and Danny Glover, cab work plugged them into the rhythms and tensions of real life that later showed up in their writing and acting.

There is also a reason so many myths collect around taxi driver origin stories. It is a tidy narrative: “They were just a cabbie, then one day they were a star.” Reality is usually messier. Some people really did live that story. Others just played a driver on screen or drove briefly as research. Sorting out which is which is exactly the kind of thing I enjoy digging into.

So if a driver ever tells you they are working on a novel, a symphony, or the next great TV show, you might want to keep that receipt. In a few decades, it could be your favorite weird little piece of trivia.

Sources

• Red Bull Music Academy – Steve Reich: The Music Maker (interview discussing his time as a cab driver).
• NewMusicBox / New Music USA – Steve Reich in conversation with Richard Kessler.
• Interlude – Philip Glass: Composer and Taxi Driver.
• The World – Why Philip Glass was still driving a cab in his 30s.
• Pacific Northwest Ballet – The Man Behind the Music: Philip Glass.:
• LA City Cab – Rising to Fame by Driving a Taxi (Larry David, Paul Stanley, Danny Glover, Jimmy Smits, Philip Glass, David Mamet, and notes on De Niro and DeVito).
• Wikipedia – David Mamet (early job as a cab driver in Chicago).
• Patons Taxi Insurance – Celebrities who made a living as taxi drivers (Danny Glover and De Niro license details).
• Taxi Plus – Famous ex cabbies (additional notes on ex taxi driving actors and De Niro trivia).
• Far Out Magazine – Unlikely former professions of musicians (Rod Stewart early jobs).
• The Atlantic – How Philip Glass went from driving taxis to composing.
• People – Larry David’s life in photos (mentions chauffeur work and early jobs).