I am not a fan of Billy Crystal. To stay on the fair side, I must say that I am not and have never been – even in the impressionable teenage years – a fan of any movie, pop, or any other type of star. But I am a huge fan of memoirs, and this one definitely is among the top of all the countless ones that I’ve read so far.
Billy Crystal is on these pages. He talks to you, he exposes himself to you, he doesn’t camouflage anything to make you like him better. And if he does hide something, it isn’t felt amidst the avalanche of sincerity and humour. It is a man’s prerogative not to say everything. Yet, for a memoir to have value, one must agree to a certain level of honesty.
Once in a while, I read a memoir which doesn’t reveal the person behind it. It is polished and lacquered like a retro car, made to look like new, masking the old, grumpy engine under the shining hood. It isn’t the case with “Still Foolin’ ‘Em: Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys.”
Billy Crystal was 65 when he wrote this book. I haven’t reached that age, but I still could relate to so many challenges that getting older presents. I admit I laughed out loud so many times that I started wishing that Mr Crystal would stop being so incredibly funny. And in some chapters, he did. Along with humour, the best part of this memoir was his stories about the special relationships he had with some of the greatest people of our time. The brightest of such friends was, undoubtedly, Muhammad Ali. Their friendship, lasting many decades, was deep and touching. A special bond connected them.
Another relationship that caused my infinite respect for Billy Crystal was the one with his wife. He got married in 1970, after what can be called love at first sight. He made a life-changing decision to be with that girl. Some might say that it was reckless. But the fact is that they are still married and, even though I’m sure they had tough moments aplenty, don’t seem to have regretted their choice.
I haven’t seen ‘When Harry Met Sally…,’ probably the most iconic role of Billy Crystal in films. How it happened, I cannot say. As obsessed as I was with movies back in the 90s – it would be only a mild exaggeration to say that I watched a movie a day – for some reason which I now cannot recall, I skipped some of the legendary films. Since I haven’t seen ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ I can assume that it had something to do with my not being impressed – ‘dislike’ is too strong a word – by Meg Ryan.
Anyway, even back then, I knew who Billy Crystal was. He hosted the Oscars ceremonies, for which my friend and I stayed awake until 3 am, the time when the show started due to the time difference between our continents. Before writing this review, I found videos from those ceremonies, and I did shed a few tears. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon so young, some legends already past their prime but still looking dashing and confident.
To sum up, I wish to repeat what I said at the beginning. Billy Crystal has written a piercingly honest and outrageously hilarious memoir. He isn’t a super-mega-star, who, as I see it, at some point lost any connection with reality, earning billions and buying properties whose cost equals the value of all the real estate in some small town. Still, he has been lucky to fulfil his dream of becoming who he felt he was. Moreover, he’s found success in doing what he loved. I feel that he is a very balanced, harmonious person. And that he has been able to keep that despite being exposed to the temptations of show business tells more about him as a person than anything else.
Eve's Book Diary 
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