Still Foolin’ ’Em

by Billy Crystal

  Two weeks later, I arrived at Reggie’s workout field and said, “Where’s Tom?”

  “He’s not here,” Reggie answered. Then he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled toward the outfield. “MICKEY! SOMEONE WANTS TO MEET YOU,” he yelled, and running in from center field, limp and all, was Mickey Mantle. “Hey, you little son of a bitch,” he asked me, “how ya doin’?” He then got into the batting cage and hit the ball beautifully, right- and left-handed. The transformation was stunning.

  I hired veteran casting director Mali Finn to work with me. The smartest, sweetest, and most talented casting director I had ever worked with, she had done such recent hits as Titanic and L.A. Confidential. She had a special relationship with all the actors she regularly saw for auditions; she cared about them and often coached them. Our research team made portfolios on all the ballplayers in the script, and Mali immersed herself in the details of that ’61 season. Basically, this woman who knew nothing about baseball became fluent in Yankee.

  Seventy-four-year-old eccentric genius Haskell Wexler joined the team as our director of photography. Even though he was a two-time Oscar winner and his son Jeff was my sound mixer, I hadn’t thought about him doing the film, until Haskell called me himself and said, “If you want me, you got me.”

  “Let’s talk,” I said.

  “Good, I’m standing outside your office.” As he entered, Haskell announced, “This is not a baseball movie. It’s the story of these two men. One shy, one not, teammates who become rivals who become friends. This has to look real. I’ll make it beautiful, but real.” How could I resist? As we cast the supporting parts with such pros as Bruce McGill and Richard Masur, the crucial role of Pat Maris, Roger’s wife, went uncast.

  When we were writing the piece, I’d been aware that my daughter Jenny was the right age, type, and personality. A talented young actress, she was currently on an ABC series called Once and Again. I told Jenny that I wanted her to read, as long as she was comfortable with the fact that she might not get the part. She said, “I want to earn it. I don’t want you to feel bad if I’m not good enough. I’d like to read.” Mali liked Jenny’s work on the series and thought she even resembled Pat Maris. We agreed to bring her in to test with Barry, but we wouldn’t tell him she was my kid. Jenny and Barry clicked immediately—their look was perfect; they felt like a couple. Their intimate scenes were splendid. When it was done and Jenny had left, Barry said, “Well, she’s great! Who is that?”

  “She’s my daughter,” I said.

  “Oh shit, I kissed her!” Barry shrieked. I calmed him down. “It’s fine, you were supposed to,” I said. Mali loved her, too, as did HBO, and we cast her in the part.

  Rusty Smith, our brilliant production designer, had the mammoth job of turning old Tiger Stadium into Yankee Stadium of 1961, painting fifty-five thousand seats the pale green used in Yankee Stadium that year and then, incredibly, turning it back into the blue Tiger Stadium of 1961 a day later! The fences were realigned and new ones built to perfection; the famous monuments to Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Miller Huggins, which stood in the outfield and had made this thirteen-year-old think it was a cemetery, were re-created and placed in center field. Every bit of advertising was removed from the park. We couldn’t have Roger Maris at bat and an ad for the Keith Olbermann show visible in the shot. We had to strip it down so we could build it up. The upper decks of the original Yankee Stadium would be added digitally, so the ballpark I remembered would be whole once more.

  To fill out the teams we would be featuring, we held baseball tryouts at a local university. Over eleven hundred men and one woman—“I wanna be Yogi,” she said—came for a chance to be in the film.

  With Yogi Berra, Barry Pepper, and Thomas Jane, shooting 61*.

  We had photographs of the real players, but I didn’t actually need anything to remind me—I remembered everything. In fact, the crew started to call me Rain Man. Each player we chose was as close as you could get to a match, not only physically but in ability. The day before we were to start shooting the baseball sequences, we held a team practice at three P.M. It was a hot August day, with beautiful mashed-potato clouds hovering over the ballpark. In their vintage uniforms, the 1961 New York Yankees ran onto that heavenly field with the sun bathing them in the most gentle way. Once again they were together: Ellie Howard and Yogi, Whitey Ford and Clete Boyer, Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson, and Moose Skowron. As a surprise I had invited Yogi Berra and Mickey’s widow, Merlyn, and their sons David and Danny to join us for practice and our preshoot party. Yogi walked in, took a long look at what we had done to transform Tiger Stadium, and with tears in his eyes whispered, “You put the old joint back together” as we embraced. Merlyn’s entrance was equally moving. A lovely woman, she’d had a very complicated marriage to Mickey. They were separated for years but never divorced, even after Mantle left her for another woman. Despite everything Mickey had done to her and the family, she still loved him deeply. She walked in holding hands with her middle-aged boys, and when I pointed to center field, she turned and caught sight of Tom. He had his broad back to us, the summer sun hitting the 7 on it just right, so he looked like he was glowing. Merlyn let out an audible sigh and had to turn away. I called, “Mickey!” and Tom ran in from the outfield as the sound of the ball hitting the bat echoed around the empty ballpark. The boys greeted Tom, and soon Merlyn joined them, and she and Tom hugged and talked. I felt like a proud papa sitting next to Yogi Berra and watching this surreal reunion.

  * * *

  The experience making 61* was—apologies in advance—a total “home run.” This was the third movie I had directed and as much as I had enjoyed the other two, this one proved that directing something so personal to you is the best job in the business. I don’t think I ever had a part as an actor that touched me as much as directing 61* did.

  Revisiting the summer of 1961, the time when I had started to find myself, while really finding myself as a director completed an important circle for me.

  A few weeks before its debut on HBO, we were invited to the White House to screen the movie for President Bush. Barry and Tom came, as did Jenny and Janice and Pat Maris and Merlyn Mantle and the HBO brass. The president had invited several senators and other dignitaries. We ate a lovely meal on the South Lawn and soon were ushered into the White House screening room. I sat next to the president, who asked me to say a few words after he welcomed everyone. I started by thanking President Bush for hosting us and for the chance to be with so many people I hadn’t voted for. W plopped his initialed cowboy boots on a hassock in front of us, and the movie started. Mickey has some risqué lines in the first few moments of the film, and I worried that the women in the room might find it offensive. “There’s only a few more,” I whispered to the president as Mantle said, “I like women with small hands—makes my dick look bigger.”

  “Bring them on,” whispered W.

  At a late point in the film, Roger, playing in Detroit, hits his fifty-third home run off a right-handed pitcher named Frank Lary. President Bush whispered to me, “I think he hit that one off Hank Aguirre, who was a lefty.” I was in awe. He was right. On the day we’d shot the scene, our Hank Aguirre hadn’t shown up, and we’d had to use our Frank Lary. “No one will ever know,” I’d said at the time, but W saw it and knew it was wrong. Now, isn’t it strange that he didn’t know there were no WMDs?

  When it was over and the lights came on, the president had tears in his eyes. “Well, that’s the best baseball movie I’ve ever seen. Hell, it’s just a great movie.” Before the president had finished speaking, Tom, in his best Mickey, blurted, “Mr. President, I really want to hear what you have to say, but right now I have to pee like a racehorse.”

  “Me too,” laughed the president, and we all ran down the hallway of the White House to the men’s room, where Tom and I and the president relieved ourselves. I love this country.

  A few weeks later, 61* premiered to huge ratings and went on to get twelve Emmy nominations, inc
luding best movie, best actor for Barry, and best director (which I lost to a young novice named Mike Nichols), as well as an extra-special honor for me: a nomination by the Directors Guild as best director for a movie made for television. Days after the premiere, Johnny Carson sent me a lovely note saying how much he’d enjoyed the movie; he’d also enclosed a DVD of some film from The Tonight Show of 1962 that he wanted me to have. There, in grainy black and white, was young Johnny in a Yankee uniform pitching to Mickey in Yankee Stadium. It is a most prized possession.

  Also prized was a phone call from Matt Damon, who told me his mother was mad at him for turning down the part, because she loved the movie. “For a Harvard kid,” she’d said, “sometimes you’re just stupid.”

  In October 2011, the fiftieth anniversary of Roger’s home run, 61* would be honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The script and a print of the movie resides in the hall’s archives.

  * * *

  Jenny got married in September 2000 (the joyous and emotional occasion I wrote about earlier), which was marred the next day when my uncle Berns collapsed at a family brunch. After my father’s death, his brother Berns had become a giant force in my life. No words can really describe him. A Santa Claus look-alike (he actually played Santa in When Harry Met Sally…) with a hilarious personality, clownlike abilities, a booming baritone singing voice, and uncommon artistic talent, he was a rock for me. We were always intensely close. I needed his presence so much.

  After his collapse, doctors healed his ailing heart with stents, and, fearing I would lose him, I made it my life’s goal to make his life longer. Janice and I rescued him from his cellarlike dwelling, found him a new apartment, paid his bills, got him healthy, and took every worry we could away from him. We basically adopted an eighty-six-year-old son. For a while Berns had been creating stunning drawings of unusual animals. He’d mix up species—a cat with a lizard’s tail, a dog with a fish body—and all were funny and, in a strange way, touching. I gave them to Tom Schumacher at Disney, and he hired Berns as a character creator. They would send Berns scripts from their animation department, and his job was to draw characters based on what he read. It was daunting at first, but soon he found his way, and his work at the age of eighty-six was as valuable as any of their young animators’.

  I was very fortunate to be close to all my uncles. Sadly, my uncle Milt Gabler, who was a giant in the recording industry and in many ways a mentor to me, died the following July. I spoke at his funeral, as did my mother, and it was tough to see my aging mom and her sister and brother weeping at the loss of their big brother. Growing up, they were all like royalty to me: young vibrant people who were electric to be around. Now my mind was filled with dread as the running order seemed in place. Milt was the oldest of the six kids. Who would be next? The fifties may be a time of more wisdom about life, but along with it comes the terrible knowledge that people you love will be leaving you.

  Uncle Berns in When Harry Met Sally—my own personal Santa.

  (Photograph © Andrew Schwartz)

  After Milt’s death, we found Berns an assisted-living apartment across the street from the World Trade Center and just a few blocks from our New York apartment. “My night-light,” he called the towers. We moved him in on September 2 and wearily went back to Los Angeles.

  It was six A.M in Los Angeles on September 11 when my daughter Lindsay called from her apartment on the Lower East Side of New York. “A plane hit the World Trade Center. I’m on my roof watching the tower burn,” she told us, disbelief in her voice. We rushed to the television and watched the beginning of the end of the world as we knew it. The horror unfolded as the news of the other hijacked planes filled the airwaves. I called Berns, who was watching the whole thing from his apartment, a hundred yards away. Berns had been at D-day and had seen mayhem like this before, but not on his doorstep. “They want us to look at this; we mustn’t look at this,” he kept saying. He assured me that he was okay. We tried calling Lindsay back, but the phones were out. Then a friend of hers called us and told us to connect to her through instant messaging. We had never used it before, and this was a hell of a way to start.

  As we got online, the first tower fell.

  LINDSAY: Oh no! It’s gone! I have to get to Uncle Berns.

  US: No. STAY WHERE YOU ARE. We don’t know what this is yet. There are other planes in the air.

  LINDSAY: What if it fell on his building?????

  US: I just spoke to him. He was in the apartment; an aide was with him.

  LINDSAY: I’m going over there.

  US: No. There’s nothing you can do. The area is sealed off. STAY WHERE YOU ARE.

  LINDSAY: I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I’m so scared. WHAT IS HAPPENING?????

  Within moments, the second tower was hit, and the huge fireball filled the screen.

  On television, the replays were staggering. As the second plane got closer I could see the jet gain speed, as if the hatred of the terrorist pilot were fueling the engines. Somehow the building absorbed the blow and remained standing, like a fighter on the ropes. Horrifically tight helicopter shots of the inferno revealed people jumping to their deaths.

  LINDSAY: OH MY GOD!

  US: The Pentagon was hit also and there is another plane, they think, heading for D.C. This is war.

  I got Berns on the phone. He was with an aide from the building as the second tower came crashing down. I could hear it and Berns’s labored breathing. “Bastards,” he muttered, and then the phone went dead.

  LINDSAY: I HAVE TO GET THERE.

  US: Stay where you are. Keep trying to call the desk of his building. That’s what we’re trying to do but it’s always busy. Keep trying. STAY HOME.

  The next hours were excruciating, and finally that night we were informed that the fire department had evacuated the elderly residents of Berns’s building and taken them on a school bus to a sister facility in Yonkers. He was safe. Lindsay, moved by the thought that, if Berns had perished that day, she wouldn’t have known who he really was, started to spend time with him and began to film their conversations. It became a beautiful relationship and ultimately a fascinating documentary called My Uncle Berns, which not only won a few film festivals but was also broadcast on HBO and led to her becoming a field producer on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for four years. It was one of the few good things that came out of 9/11.

  We had watched the murder of three thousand innocent people on television. We watched this vile act celebrated in some parts of the Middle East. We watched our world and our future change in moments of insanity. We were introduced to the madman Osama bin Laden. Still reeling from my uncle Milt’s passing, 9/11 was another huge blow. There would be others.

  Dick Schaap, the noted sports journalist who’d been the first person to put me on television, had become one of our best friends. He was a special man with a great sense of humor and a gentle spirit. I had introduced him to Berns at a family function and they’d become fast friends and would often see each other while Janice and I were in California. He called to see how Berns was doing, and I put them in touch. Berns had left his building in his wheelchair, wearing slippers, and had no shoes and only the clothes on his eighty-six-year-old back. Dick not only bought Berns clothes, he found him some sneakers—which wasn’t easy, considering Berns wore a size 17. Dick got them from a contact at the NBA and brought them to Berns in Yonkers. Dick called us when they were all together and then told me he was going in for hip replacement surgery the next day. He said he’d talk to me as soon as he could, and to let him know if Berns needed anything. Let him know? He was about to have major surgery, but he was more concerned about my uncle.

  Dick had the usually routine surgery, but there were complications, including an embolism in one of his lungs. A botched diagnosis followed, and eventually he was put into a coma so his body could heal itself. We were devastated and worried. What more could go wrong?

  * * *

  Monsters, Inc. opened as a big hit, but th
e strain of the last few months made me feel like I was running in mud. I loved playing Mike Wazowski, the little one-eyed green monster, opposite John Goodman. To me, the movie was a classic, and I was thrilled to be in a modern-day Pinocchio, but I found it hard to enjoy anything. Pixar arranged a series of screenings for families of police officers and firemen and first responders, which John Goodman and I hosted. New York at that time was a nervous, grieving place. Everyone had an ominous instinct that at any moment Al Qaeda could strike again. There were warnings of chemical attacks and suicide bombings, and the airports seemed like war zones. People thought twice about being in crowds, and those of Middle Eastern heritage were scrutinized. The smoking wreckage of the buildings was piled high, and bodies were still being removed. We all had a sick feeling, knowing that some three thousand souls were hovering over Ground Zero. At the Monsters, Inc. screenings, it was moving to see these young people have a laugh or two in the midst of their sadness. It was also a prelude for what would become one of the more difficult tasks of my career.

  The Concert for New York City was being put together as a major benefit for the families who’d lost loved ones that day. The Who, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, and the Stones were among the legendary musicians who would play, and I was asked to greet the huge crowd at Madison Square Garden. David Bowie opened the show, and then it was my turn. Gripped with fear about what had happened to our city and our world, and weighed down by the constant feeling of being on guard, I walked out onto the stage. All the moments of my career could not prepare me for what I saw. The members of the audience directly in front of me were all firefighters and police officers and men, women, and children holding up signs saying, HAVE YOU SEEN MY BROTHER? HAVE YOU SEEN MY FATHER? HAVE YOU SEEN MY MOTHER, MY WIFE, MY HUSBAND, MY SISTER, MY COUSIN, MY FRIEND, MY TEACHER? HAVE YOU SEEN…”