''Taxi!!!'' is a television movie that debuted on the NBC television network as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie on February 2, 1978. The film is directed by Joseph Hardy. It stars Martin Sheen and Eva Marie Saint.

Cast

External links

Category:American television films Category:1970s drama films Category:1978 television films Category:Television anthology episodes Category:Hallmark Hall of Fame episodes

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Background

Jim's mother died when he was quite young, leaving Jim's father (later played by Victor Buono) to raise the family. Being busy with his business, Mr. Caldwell left much of this task to various family servants. This seemed to affect all the Caldwell children in some way: Jim was an extremely uptight and humorless person before he became a drop-out; his brother Tom remained humorless and somewhat mean-spirited throughout his adulthood; and his sister Lila exhibited marked nymphomania.

Jim was his father's favorite child. An excellent student, he attended Harvard. Then a girl he was going out with introduced him to "funny brownies" - containing marijuana - and convinced him to partake. After ingesting these brownies, the transformation within Jim was virtually instantaneous. His term paper on "Plutarch's Lives" was forgotten—in fact, by his second semester at Harvard, he was writing his term papers in fingerpaint. ("The typewriter seemed so impersonal", he explained.) Jim would become part of the counterculture, and was ordained as a minister with the Church of the Peaceful ("investigated and cleared of all charges"). Around this time, Jim changed his last name to Ignatowski, believing it was "Starchild" spelled backwards.

Jim was thrown out of the Democratic Convention in Chicago for stealing decorations, and attended Woodstock ("500,000 people...lucky for them I went or it would have only been 499,999"). He said he kept finding God everywhere--"he kept ditching me". He also spent a year of his life making a macrame couch, and was once traded from his commune to another commune for two goats and a Donovan album (although which Donovan album was never specified). Jim once claimed that instead of finding Nirvana or God, from his 1960s experiences, it only left him with recurring flashbacks of the original Mouseketeers (especially Cubby) appearing as visions hatching out of seedpods.

On the show

Jim was a treasure trove of eccentricities, most of which could be traced to after-effects of his 1960s drug intake. He lived in a condemned building; bought a racehorse he renamed Gary (to erase his "slave name") and kept him in his living room; spent a considerable period of time trying to become the "perfect" cabbie only to spend all his earnings on a wall of TVs; and dismantled his van to build a castle for Elaine Nardo (played by Marilu Henner). He screamed in his sleep, and thought weekends were nine days long because "we switched to the metric system." His drug expertise also allowed him to identify the coca leaves (from which cocaine is made) in Latka's cookies -- "Southern Peru, '74, before the rains" -- much like a wine taster describing a vintage. His heroes were St. Thomas Aquinas, Mahatma Gandhi, Alan Alda, and Louie De Palma (played by Danny DeVito), who ironically treated him quite poorly and took advantage of him at every opportunity. Jim also admitted to being a fan of the original Star Trek series, although he strongly believed that the Romulans were portrayed incorrectly.

At one point, his last known address was a 1963 Volkswagen. As such, when his father died and left him $3,000,000, his family stepped in to keep him from receiving his inheritance. Ultimately, he was able to get his money, and (in the series' last original episode) wound up buying the cabbies' favorite hangout, Mario's, and renaming it Jim's Mario's. Jim also received a cassette in his father's will. It contained Stevie Wonder singing "You Are the Sunshine of My Life".

Jim as a character was not as one-dimensional as one might think. Lloyd was able to add considerable humanity to the part, so that what could have been a one-note caricature of a 60s burnout instead was shown to be a warm caring person with a heart of gold. He also occasionally surprised everybody (especially himself) by exhibiting unexpected talents; for example, he could play the piano masterfully (though he couldn't remember taking lessons).

Career

Radio

He was hired away by WTJS for double the salary by Jackson's only other station, WDXI. He next hosted mornings at WHBQ in Memphis while a college student at Memphis State University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1957. While there Martindale became a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity.

Martindale's rendition of the spoken-word song, "The Deck Of Cards," went to No. 7 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart and sold over a million copies in 1959. It also peaked at No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1963, one of four visits to that chart. It was followed by "Black Land Farmer". In 1959, he became morning man at KHJ in Los Angeles, California, moving a year later to the morning show at KRLA and finally to KFWB in 1962. He also had lengthy stays at KGIL, KKGO/KJQI and Gene Autry's KMPC. In 1967, Martindale narrated a futuristic documentary which predicted Internet commerce.

Television

Martindale hosted numerous game shows, including ''Gambit'', ''High Rollers'', ''Debt'', and ''Tic-Tac-Dough'', among others. In addition, Martindale also created the USA Network original game show ''Bumper Stumpers''. Martindale is second in the most number of game shows hosted at 15, behind fellow veteran game show host, Bill Cullen, who hosted 23 shows.

Later career

Martindale appeared in various TV commercials and was also the spokesperson for Orbitz. Until 2007, Martindale had a daily three-hour show on the syndicated Music Of Your Life format, which is heard on around 200 radio stations. On June 2, 2009, Martindale signed with the syndicated Hit Parade Radio format. The format began operation on February 7, 2010, with Martindale as afternoon drive personality. The syndicator stopped operating on June 6, 2010.

In 2008, Wink appeared on ''GSN Live'', an interstitial program during the afternoon block of classic game show reruns. Several times during 2008, Martindale filled in for Fred Roggin on ''GSN Live'' while Roggin was on vacation. Martindale currently hosts the GSN show ''Instant Recall'', which premiered on March 4, 2010. ''Instant Recall'' will be the first show Martindale has hosted since ''Debt'' aired on Lifetime from 1996 to 1998.

Personal life

References

External links

Category:1934 births Category:Living people Category:American game show hosts Category:American Christians Category:People from Jackson, Tennessee Category:Actors from Tennessee Category:University of Memphis alumni Category:Dot Records artists Category:OJ Records artists