March 14 - Billy Crystal

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On this day, in 1948, William Edward Crystal was born in Manhattan, New York. As a toddler, Billy's family moved to Long Island so his father could take over his maternal grandfather's record store, the Commodore Music Store. The store was a big promoter of jazz musicians through it's record label, Commodore Records, founded by Billy's Uncle Milt. As a result, he grew up constantly surrounded by jazz legends. Louis Armstrong and Pee Wee Russell were frequent dinner guests. He saw his first movie in a theater, Shane (featuring future co-star Jack Palance), sitting on the lap of Billie Holiday. Billy and his brothers would entertain everyone with routines they'd memorized from comedy albums from their fathers store It was a pretty idyllic life until his mid teens. In 1963, unable to compete with new discount record chains, Commodore Music was forced to close and, a few months later, Billy's dad suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 54.

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Billy graduated from Long Beach High School in 1965 and moved on to Marshall University in West Virginia on a baseball scholarship. He would not get a single at-bat at the school, however. The baseball program was axed in his first year. Rather than return to Marshall the following year, Billy stayed in New York (mainly because of a cute girl, Janice Goldfinger, to whom he's been married since 1970) and began studying acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio and directing at New York University. He graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor's degree and immediately put it to good use as a stand up comedian.

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Billy spent most of the Seventies doing all the things a stand up comic does. He performed at colleges and in coffee houses in a trio with friends, eventually creating a solo act playing gigs at comedy clubs. To keep his comedy career afloat, he subsidized his income as a substitute teacher in the New York City public school system (a fertile ground for bits for his act, I'm sure). He was scheduled to appear on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live, but his sketch was cut at the last minute (he made up for it, and then some, later). He also made the rounds on the syndicated game show circuit and still holds the record for getting his contestant the the top of The $20,000 Pyramid the fastest (26 seconds). He was part of the Dean Martin Roast of Muhammad Ali and a guest on the first Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (he would also appear on Carson's last show 22 years later).

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In 1977, Billy's acting career began with a bang when he became part of the cast of Soap. His portrayal of Jodie Dallas is sometimes credited with being the first openly gay character on television (it was actually the second, the first happened on The Corner Bar, a 1972 series that only lasted 16 episodes). Although Jodie would have relationships with women over the course of the series (and the network would be really skittish about anything overtly same-sex) Billy and the producers maintained that he was gay the whole time. While highly controversial with the religious right, Jodie never actually received any protests from the gay community (once some initial fears were satisfactorily dealt with).

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When Soap ended it's run in 1981, Billy was given his own variety show The Billy Crystal Comedy Hour but it only lasted two episodes. He then hosted Saturday Night Live and joined the regular cast for a season in 1984. His big contribution to the SNL oeuvre was the talk show host Fernando and the catch phrase "You look maahvelous!" Billy's most successful run on television is undoubtedly as an awards show host. He's emceed three Grammy Awards (all in a row) and hosted the Oscars nine times (second only to Bob Hope's nineteen turns) earning himself two Emmy Awards in the process.

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Billy's film career did not begin as well as his television one. His debut was in a Joan Rivers directed clunker called Rabbit Test in 1978. He plays the world's first pregnant man, a premise which definitely has potential, but there's a reason Joan never directed anything ever again (it is notable only for being the big screen debut of Billy and Michael Keaton). Things picked up for Billy when he teamed with Rob Reiner for three films. After a bit part in This Is Spinal Tap, Billy gave a star turn as Miracle Max in The Princess Bride. The duo's third film together, When Harry Met Sally..., is arguably Billy's best performance ever and earned him a Golden Globe nomination.

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In the years since, Billy's films have been a mixed bag. He earned another Golden Glob nomination for the classic Western comedy City Slickers (with Jack Palance) and helped start Robert DeNiro's comedy career with Analyze This but also did films like the box office bomb Father's Day. He actually used his degree in directing for the first time in 1992 for Mr. Saturday Night (a box office flop that was nonetheless nominated for a few acting awards) and again in 1995 on Forget Paris (a modest box office success). In 2001, Billy directed a HBO movie, 61*, which chronicled the race to break Babe Ruth's single season home run record and nabbed him an Emmy nomination for directing.

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Billy could have become part of the Disney family in 1995. He was asked to take on the role of Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. He turned it down. The subsequent popularity of that franchise was definitely an influence when, six years later, he accepted the part of Mike Wazowski in Monsters, Inc. He reprised the role twelve years later for the prequel Monsters University and made a cameo as Mike Car in 2006's Cars.

In recent years, Billy has written a memoir of his father, 700 Sundays, which was developed from a successful one man show of the same name on Broadway. It won a Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event in 2005, He is part owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team, which earned him a World Series ring in 2001 when his team triumphed over his beloved New York Yankees. And I would be terribly remiss if I didn't mention the decades of philanthropy Billy has done, starting with hosting Comic Relief in 1986, his signing of a Harley Davidson motorcycle that supported Gulf Coast relief in 2005 and his continued participation in the Simon Wiesanthal Center Museum of Tolerance. Happy birthday Billy. May we be the one millionth person to tell you that you really do look maahvelous (and ask if you fee

l up to another Academy Awards broadcast; they could really use you).