Billy Crystal On Making Memories And Memoirs

This Program Is Rebroadcast From September 13, 2013

Billy Crystal joins us, on a life in comedy and being Billy Crystal.

Comedian Billy Crystal is 65 now, and can’t believe it.  The indignities.  The unfamiliar face in the mirror.  The sleepless nights that make every night like Yom Kippur, he says.  Long hours of regret and atonement.  Of course, being Billy Crystal, he makes it all very, very funny.  True, and even hard.  But always somehow sweet.  Sweetly, gut-turningly funny.  He was there in "When Harry Met Sally" and "City Slickers" and "Analyze This" and all those Oscar nights.  And now with us, looking back. Up next On Point:  Billy Crystal remembers.

Billy Crystal, Tony Award and five-time Emmy Award-winning comedian, director, actor, and bestselling author. Nine-time Academy Award host, and author of the new memoir, “Still Foolin’ ‘Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?” (@billycrystal)

USA Today: 'Still Foolin' 'Em' is still getting laughs for Billy Crystal (Book Review) — "He remembers all the highlights and a few disappointments in his career, which began when he was a substitute teacher and led to starring roles in When Harry Met Sallyand City Slickers. He offers only a few glimpses of the business part of showbiz and how hard he's worked at making it look easy. Many names are dropped. As a kid on Long Island, his family doctor was Don Rickles' cousin, 'which is not why we chose him.'"

NPR Weekend Edition: Billy Crystal's 'Foolin,' Full of Fun — And Feeling -- "I went to my first game May 30, 1956, and Mantle was in the beginnings of his Triple Crown season. And he was drop-dead handsome. He was the blond-haired, blue-eyed kid that every small, dark Jewish kid wished he could be. And I saw him that day for the first time; I was 8 years old. And that day, he hit an incredible shot that went up through the clouds and hit 18 inches from going out of the ballpark. I just stood up and watched this thing go — and then I wanted to be Mickey Mantle."