When Harry Met Sally actor Billy Crystal has revealed the secrets behind his 54 years of happy marriage years with his wife Janice.
The 76-year-old actor, best known for starring in one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time, and his wife, 75, share daughters Jennifer, 51, and Lindsay, 46.
Crystal, who executive produced and stars in a new Apple+ series called Before, has opened up about the key to a lasting relationship as well as the shared goals that he says have kept his marriage going strong over decades.
“Humour and trust and constantly be interested in what each of us are doing and respecting our separate lives and who we are,” he said.
“But our common goal was always just to raise a beautiful family, which we have and continue to do. And just respect each other. And she’s an extraordinary person.”
The pair met as teenagers and have remained together ever since.
“I’m lucky,” he told Fox News. “I was 18. She was 17. And here we still are.”
Crystal and Janice met in 1966 while the comedian was working at a summer camp in Long Beach, New York, after his freshman year at Marshall University in West Virginia.
“This girl walks by … and I said, ‘I’m gonna marry her.’ And I did, four years later,” Crystal said.
“I loved her so much right away,” he added. “You know, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a long-distance relationship — they don’t work out.”
The pair tied the knot in June 1970.
During a recent interview with People magazine, Crystal reflected on how his life changed after becoming a parent.
“Oh, children change everything,” he said. “When I first became a dad back in 1973, Janice was working, and I was starting my career as a stand-up at night. So, during the day, I was ‘Mr. Mom’ and that changed my life totally.
“The responsibility as a 25-year-old with an infant that can’t get through the day without you,” Crystal continued. “When you learn that you can love something much more than yourself, it was the greatest experience in my life as a person.
“That’s been my total effort of my life is to leave the world with two amazing daughters — grown women now, mothers of their own. And that they then teach their children, our four grandchildren, what it means the responsibility in our world, which is changing constantly.”
After launching his career as a stand-up comic, Crystal went on to star in the TV sitcom Soap during the show’s four-season run from 1977 to 1981.
He landed his first film role in Joan Rivers’ 1978 comedy Rabbit Test.
Crystal then appeared in Rob Reiner’s 1984 rockumentary This is Spinal Tap. The director later cast him as a supporting character in the 1987 fantasy romantic comedy “The Princess Bride”.
Crystal took on lead roles in 1986’s Running Scared and 1987’s Throw Momma From the Train.
The actor rocketed to stardom when Reiner cast him in the 1989 hit romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally opposite Meg Ryan.
In the series Before he plays a psychiatrist who has lost his wife and encounters a boy, Noah, who seems to have a haunting connection to him.
“Every second of this character is a challenge,” Crystal said. “I’ve never played a character who’s under so much stress and fearful and grief-stricken and filled with his own terrors and his pursuit of, as a sort of detective trying to solve the mystery.”
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