Marilu Henner from Taxi fame has a new stage show heading to London called Madwomen Of The West from writer Sandra Tsing Loh.
And now the 72-year-old performer has talked to DailyMail.com exclusively about her ‘boundary pushing’ play as well as bustling career that kicked off in 1971.
She has also appeared in the films Johnny Dangerously, Perfect, L.A. Story and Noises Off and is part of the Hallmark Channel’s Aurora Teagarden Mysteries franchise.
The redheaded siren – who played the beloved hottie Elaine O’Connor Nardo on Taxi from 1978 until 1983 – touched on several subjects.
The Dancing With The Stars vet admitted that she ‘likes to stay busy’ and doesn’t mind working all the time.
The ex of John Travolta also said that she is careful with her diet after she kicked her up-to 12 Tab diet sodas a day habit in 1979 and she likes to walk a ton saying ‘motion is lotion.’
Then there is her memory: she has the ability to recall every day of her life; it’s called ‘highly superior autobiographical memory,’ which is a rare condition identified in only 100 people worldwide.
Henner also told DailyMail.com exclusively that she has psychic abilities.
The play has been a blast for Henner.
‘I had so much fun doing my play Madwomen of the West. Now it’s in London, and this is my first stage performance in London,’ said Henner.
The performance dates are July 30 to August 24.
‘The idea for the play started during the pandemic when I was on Zoom with Sandra and three other women as we talked about what it’s like to be a woman in this day and age,’ she added.
‘It’s about friends from college, and one of them, Zoe, went off to find fame and fortune as an actress then turned into a health guru. That woman is played by me. We all meet up at a party and secrets are revealed.
‘The play is very provocative and boundary pushing because we talk about everything, including sex – each woman has a different experience.’
As far as her TV series Taxi, Marilu said she is thrilled that it is such a big hit on the streamers which is bringing her plenty of young fans.
‘I’m still very close to the cast of we have done 22 Zooms. We get together for dinners. We saw Danny on Broadway. They came to see my cabaret act. We went to a screening of Judd’s movie Fabelmans. So we spend a lot of time together together.
‘Andy Kaufman has been dead for so many years and he is still popular. Taxi holds up. It’s fabulous. The show had such a gritty reality and doesn’t feel dated.’
She also said Taxi – which starred Judd Hirsch and Danny DeVito – covered issues ahead of time. And there is an interesting Friends link.
‘Jim Burrows did Taxi then directed several episodes of Friends, including the pilot. So Taxi is a lot like Friends in a way. Tony Danza is like Joey Tribbiani. Monica is like me. Phoebe is like Chris Lloyd and Judd is like Ross.
‘I love watching Friends. I will watch an episode four times.’
As far as Marilu’s unique never-forget-anything memory, she says she has been tested many times: ‘They have wired me, put me through an MRI they have done. They have taken 300 measurements of my brain and have found nine areas 10 times larger than the normal brain.’.
And she also admitted for the first time to DailyMail.com that she has psychic abilities.
‘Because I am so quick to recognize patterns, I get images and feelings about some things,’ she noted.
The star then relayed an incident with her second husband, where he asked her in the middle of the night for a friend’s phone number, and she rattled the number off.
The number worked, but the person who picked up the phone asked where they got this number from as it was a private number. And, yes, the person her husband wanted to talk to was there at that location.
When Marilu was asked how she knew that number that very few people had and did not belong to the woman her husband wanted to talk to, she said she didn’t know.
‘I pick things up and patterns – you see it for and feel it. You know this is gonna happen.’
Henner still looks like a Hollywood bombshell in her 70s. And she has told DailyMail.com her secrets.
As far as exercise, she says she wakes up at 5:30 every morning and gets going fast.
‘I walk a lot – two or three miles a day. I am always moving. I walk around my house when I am on my phone. I do Pilates warm-up, I take the stairs a lot. For a recent technical rehearsal I went upstairs like 62 times in one day.
‘I learned how to really walk a few years ago because I felt I was not articulating on my feet. How you walk affects your feet and hips, and you have to be careful how you walk.
‘Motion is lotion, it keeps everything lubricated, I like to say. There is a gracefulness about moving through space in alignment. You are this beautiful animal. You have to walk yourself.’
And she is careful with her diet.
‘Dairy products did not love me and they were bad for me so I had to stop. My biggest love was cheese and I had to give it up.
‘A nutritionist told me you will not be healthy until you give up dairy. I used to eat a pound of Jarlsberg at a time as my 1,700 calorie a day diet.
‘On August 15, 1979 I gave up dairy and I’ve never looked back.’
She said the reason she has been so careful with her health is because she lost her parents at a young age.
‘My parents died in their 50s and I couldn’t let their deaths be in vain so I studied the human body and nutrition. I took human anatomy classes at UCLA.’
Then Henner got healthy.
‘I used to drink up to 12 Tabs a day with a minimum of six,’ she said. Tab was a diet soda that was popular in the 1970s.
‘I gave up Tab for three weeks and told myself after that I could try it again later. But when I tried it again, I spit it out and my tongue hurt. I’ve never had a soda since then – no diet soda, nothing.’
As far as her favorite work projects, she said they are Taxi, Chicago The Musical and Annie Get Your Gun.
She also added that her life changed when she started writing: ‘I love writing it’s mine. I have more control when I write.’
Marilu has written Total Health Makeover, a popular book about detoxing your body and eating organic food. The success spurred her to write more health books including The 30-Day Total Health Makeover and Healthy Life Kitchen.
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Source: CNN
