9. Travis Bickle & Arthur Bremer
Arthur Bremer was a sociopath hellbent on making an impact. He inspired the iconic antihero Travis Bickle, the lead character in Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver. Four years before the movie’s release, Bremer plugged American politician George Wallace with five bullets, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
Like the movie, Bremer was also spurned by a love interest. But it was entirely due to his own “goofy” and “weird” nature, according to the 16-year-old Joan Pemrich, whom he briefly dated. As did Bickle with Cybill Shepherd, Bremer took Pemrich to a p*rno theater and spoke graphically about sex. Once she broke it off for good, he made a vow “to do SOMETHING BOLD AND DRAMATIC, FORCEFUL & DYNAMIC, A STATEMENT of my manhood for the world to see.”
Initially, Bremer wanted to assassinate Richard Nixon, but he was unable. So he settled on Wallace. On May 15, 1972 he pushed through the crowd at a rally in Wheaton, Maryland and shot him repeatedly in the abdomen. Like Travis Bickle, Bremer wore dark glasses and a Wallace button that said “WALLACE in ’72” and clapped hysterically in the audience after every applause break.
Discussion about this post