The night Danny DeVito partied with Michael Jackson: “It was really wild”
There aren’t many contemporary actors who have remained at the top of their craft for over half a century, but Danny DeVito continues to defy expectations through his incredible role on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which has become the longest-running live-action sitcom of all time.
Although slightly older fans might recognise DeVito most for his role as the Penguin in Tim Burton’s classic superhero sequel Batman Returns, he had first begun to peak in popularity thanks to being part of the ensemble of the sitcom Taxi.
Set in the world of New York City taxicab drivers, Taxi assembled a host of incredible actors who would all go on to have long careers in the industry, including Judd Hirsch, Christopher Lloyd, Tony Danza, Carol Kane, and Andy Kaufman. Although DeVito had previously earned praise for a more dramatic performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Taxi showed just how funny he could be.
The show has been subsequently hailed as one of the greatest sitcoms ever, but the series was an even bigger cultural juggernaut when it was on the air, and according to what DeVito told Parade, the wild parties on the set of Taxi attracted such iconic guests as Henry Winkler and John Belushi.
“Every Friday night we had a big party,” the actor recalled, “It was really wild. For five years on Taxi, we worked from Monday to Friday. We did the show on Friday night, and then we had a party, and everybody came to that party, from people who were on the sets of all the other shows.”
Being at these parties introduced DeVito to many famous people, including Robin Williams, with whom he would go on to work decades later in the dark comedy Death to Smoocy, but none of those encounters could compare to meeting the most famous artist in the world. “Michael Jackson was there,” he said, “Michael loved our show. He used to come and watch in the booth up in the top where the technicians were”.
Taxi was on the air from 1978 to 1983, which is right when Jackson was beginning to dominate the popular culture landscape. Although his breakthrough album outside of the Jackson 5 came in 1979 with Off the Wall, the release of Thriller in 1982 changed the music industry forever and resulted in perhaps the single most famous music videos in history.
While Jackson’s presence might have felt intimidating, it’s worth remembering that the ‘King of Pop’ was a massive cinephile who often called upon studios to cast him in films, such that he was briefly considered for the role of Peter Pan in the Steven Spielberg film Hook, and often lobbied to be cast as Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode I- The Phantom Menace, as well as Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men. While many of his plans didn’t materialise, he did famously have a cameo playing an alien in Men in Black II.
While it’s not entirely surprising that two artists as talented as DeVito and Jackson were in one another’s company during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, what’s even more impressive is that neither has faded in popularity or relevancy to a younger generation. DeVito is set to reappear on the big screen next year with a role in the latest Jumanji sequel, and the Jackson biopic Michael is finally going to debut in the spring.
