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Billy Crystal got slapped twice by a comedy legend.
The “City Slickers” actor explained to Stephen Colbert on his “Colbert Before Air” segment this week that he had two meetings with the “Milton Berle Show” star that both ended in him getting smacked.
“I may be the last one alive to know Milton Berle stories,” Crystal mused in front of the audience before explaining that he was once on Steve Allen’s show on a panel that included Carl Reiner and Milton Berle.
“I sat in between the two of them, these two bookends of — these giants of television,” he said.
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Billy Crystal said he’s been slapped by Milton Berle. (Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images)
Crystal said that 20 minutes into the taping, the crew explained that the cameras weren’t registering properly and they didn’t get any of their conversation, so they planned to pause the show, fix it and start over.
“Milton Berle turns to me and says, ‘Looks like I’m on.’ ‘OK.’ He then asks for a, ‘Give me a mic, give me a mic!’ So, now he goes out in front of the audience and he does a bunch of time, and it’s just hilarious, but weird,” Crystal said.
He continued, “He’s doing it, he’s walking on his ankles, he’s doing everything, and he finishes, comes back. We give him a standing ovation, and he looks at me, and he slaps me in the face.”
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“For a laugh,” Colbert interjected.
Milton Berle and Billy Crystal are seen together in Beverly Hills in 1995. (Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images)
“Yeah,” Crystal answered, adding that Berle told him, “‘Did you notice, everything I did is on the nose? Everything Milton does, Uncle Miltie is on the nose.’ He said, ‘You think you’re so hip. You come over to my house. We’ll smoke some dope, and I will hip you into the ground. I said, ‘OK, I would love that to happen.’ He says, ‘I do an imitation of Jerry Lewis directing a movie that will make you plotz. I said, ‘I haven’t plotzed in a while so I look forward to it.’”
About two weeks later, Crystal said he was sitting in the original Spago restaurant in Los Angeles with comedian Alan King.
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“And who comes in but Milton Berle and his wife, Ruth, and they sit behind us, Milton facing me, Alan King is facing me, so Alan can’t see Milton,” he explained.
Crystal said he and King began discussing the script for a movie they were working on together, adding that “every so often Milton would pop up his head” and make a face at him, he explained, scrunching his face comically.
“Then there was the cigar under the upper lip,” he added. “This went on forever and ever and ever, and I’m just dying, right? Milton finishes early, comes over to the table.”
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Milton Berle is seen performing with Ethel Merman in 1950. (Getty Images)
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Crystal then had Colbert play him while he portrayed Berle doing his impression of Jerry Lewis directing a movie.
“You’re the actor, I’m Jerry, I’m going to now direct,” Crystal said as Berle doing Jerry Lewis. “Now, listen, your wife has left you, you’re lonely, you’ve been drinking too much. Life is meaningless.”
He continued, “You’re in a hotel all by yourself, right? You have to reach inside yourself, Bill. You open the window, you look down at the 12 stories, and you say to yourself (in Jerry Lewis’ voice), ‘Things aren’t going so good!’”
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After Berle’s bit was finished, Crystal said the comedian got up and slapped him in the face again. “He hipped me into the ground,” he said, shrugging.
Berle also once kissed Crystal on the lips while the two were doing a bit at his televised 90th birthday celebration in 1998, joking that Crystal was a “lousy straight man.”
Milton Berle is seen with Bob Hope in drag during the special “Bob Hope Buys NBC” in 1985. (Getty Images)
He then planted a kiss on the “When Harry Met Sally” star, adding “Billy, if I ever switch, you’re first.”
Berle, sometimes known as “Mr. Television” because he was the first big star of the small screen, also slapped Crystal again later in the bit after Crystal joked, “You caused more television sets to be sold. My father sold his. My uncle sold his.”
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“That’s a funny line,” Berle admitted. “I wish I’d have said that.”
“Don’t worry, you will,” Crystal replied, referring to Berle’s self-admitted reputation as a joke thief.