The lives of the presidents of the U.S. have always been a prolific source of inspiration for talented filmmakers in Hollywood. From Kevin Costner starrer JFK to Daniel Day Lewis’ Lincoln, there are plenty of movies that have been based on these powerful political figures.
However, Robert De Niro’s Taxi Driver (1976), the movie about a taxi driver who decides to save an underage prostitute in an effort to clean the city of its corruption, ended up doing the complete opposite – dangerously influencing the life of Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States.
How Robert De Niro’s Taxi Driver Inspired an Assassination Attempt on Ronald Reagan
Martin Scorsese mirrored the frustrations and emotional crisis of ex-marine and Vietnam veteran, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Robert De Niro‘s character is a taxi driver who builds disgust for the streets of New York after witnessing crime and depravity.
In one of the scenes, he wishes “a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.” But he doesn’t take the law into his own hands until his love interest Betsy rejects him. As things take a turn for the worse for the movie’s anti-hero, he attempts to assassinate Senator Charles Palantine and later decides to save an adolescent s-x worker (Jodie Foster) by killing her pimps.
The powerful climax of the movie made Taxi Driver a huge critical and commercial success. Captivatingly, it ended up inspiring John Hinckley Jr. to attempt the assassination of Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. He shot and wounded the U.S. President and three others outside the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.
As per a report in the Washington Post, the movie was “the last piece of evidence offered by Hinckley’s lawyers in their effort to convince the jury that Hinckley was legally insane when he wounded Reagan and three others and should not be held criminally responsible for his acts.”
Further, Hinckley wanted to impress Foster by shooting President Reagan. He even wrote multiple notes to the actress in early March 1981; they were subsequently passed to the Yale police department, but they failed to catch him.
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was later confined at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington, D.C. He was released in 2016.
What Robert De Niro’s Taxi Driver Screenwriter Said About John Hinckley Jr.
Hinckley didn’t just write to Foster before his assassination attempt. He also contacted Paul Schrader, the screenwriter of the iconic movie.
Speaking on The Originals podcast (via LAmag), Schrader told host Andrew Goldman that he was in a cab in New Orleans when the wild news reached him. He said:
“I told the driver, ‘It’s one of the Taxi Driver kids! Oh my God!’ I just felt it in my bones. And then I got back to the hotel, and the FBI was waiting. They wanted to know if this person, Hinckley, had been in touch with me. But what they were really wanting to know was, were there any other persons involved?”
However, at the time, the legendary screenwriter decided to not reveal this information to the Feds, as he believed the questions would never end if he had told the FBI that Hinckley had been writing to him.
