Q&A with Joe Torre and Billy Crystal

The actor-director and the Yankees manager, have teamed up to promote "Finding Our Families, Finding Ourselves," a multimedia exhibit at L.A.'s Museum of Tolerance, The show documents the ancestry and personal histories of some notable Americans including the 55-year-old Crystal (he and his wife Janice are the exhibit's executive producers), Torre, 62, author Maya Angelou and singer Carlos Santana.

SI: Why was it important for both of you to examine your roots, to know where you came from?

Crystal: The last part of the sentence is the key point: Where we came from. And it's not just literally. It's how we end up being people, how we end up being who we are. Everyone matters in your past. Everyone influenced everybody. That's what people have been coming away with at the exhibit, so far. We're all different, yeah, but it's really about how alike we all are and how the stories we tell could be interchanged.

SI: Joe, you've talked about growing up in an abusive household and being afraid. Was this an emotional project for you?

Torre: It really was. As a youngster I had fear in my life from my dad. My mom was always the one there. It feels strange to be celebrating something she was ashamed of all these years -- and that's where she was born [in the Italian village of Patina]. My dad [an American] made her feel inferior because she came from "the other side." This exhibit means an awful lot to me.

SI: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michelle Kwan and Steve Young also share parts of their history. That must have been interesting.

Crystal: What was interesting was the different age ranges of all the participants. Kareem is mid-50s, Steve just turned 40 and Michelle is 20-something. Looking back was a common theme for them. Michelle's story is about her grandfather coming from China. Kareem talked about his grandfather and grandmother's struggles to get here, and Steve talked about the fact that his grandfather died two days before he was born. My job was to get it out of everybody and put it on the screen. In directing all the videos, I discovered how honest everybody was willing to be, and how moving this exhibit is because of the honesty.

SI: You have been friends for quite some time, but was there anything in each other's personal history that you were surprised to learn?

Torre: Well, I know I had heard so much about Billy's uncle but I never had a chance to see him before the exhibit, and you can say he was more like a buddy than a relative. I think people can relate to that. At the end of the exhibit everybody gets the opportunity to start their own search on a computer and to me that's wonderful. It's just like crying for the first time. I think when an athlete sees another athlete cry, all of a sudden these walls come down and you realize there are things you want to find out about yourself. I know for years we were ashamed, or were supposed to be ashamed, that we had divorce and abuse in our family. I think this exhibit helps so many other people to be open with it.

SI: Joe, since you're at the Museum of Tolerance, just how much tolerance will George Steinbrenner have if you don't win the title this year?

Torre: That was evident after we won 103 games last year and he said it wasn't enough. He makes a commitment to the people of New York, and the commitment is the Series. I know that.

SI: Billy, do you root for the Clippers as a way to make up for your allegiance to the Yankees?

Torre: I've been through 13 years of ups and downs and I thought this would be the year that they [the Clippers] would turn the corner and start seeing a way to win ... and it's not happening, again. I feel like the Mets fans of the early 1960s. Maybe they'll be a 1969 for us Clippers fans.

SI: Billy has always been a terrific athlete, as anybody who watched him on Battle of the Network Stars can tell you. Can you assess him as a ballplayer?

Torre: He has tools that nobody else has, no question. He has great hands. He's funny, but I don't think he has a sense of humor when it comes to his athletic prowess.

SI: How is it that you and Billy speak before every Yankees playoff game?

Torre: We were struggling in 1999 during the regular season, and after Billy and I had lunch one day, we broke our losing streak. From then on Billy would call and say, 'We eat together, we win together.' During the World Series that year against the Braves, I was sitting in a cafŽ and my phone rang: 'We eat together, we win together.' That's how it started.

SI: What Yankee does Billy remind you of?

Torre: Billy Martin. A lot of energy and there's nothing he can't accomplish.

SI: Billy, is there an actor Joe reminds you of?

Crystal: In some ways, Gary Cooper. In other ways, a little Mel Gibson and a little Samuel Jackson.

Torre: (laughing) Yeah, I can see that.

SI: What did you think of Joe's performance in Analyze That?

Crystal: Joe can handle any situation. He can talk off the top of his head. He can be very eloquent. He was actually slightly nervous to meet Bob DeNiro because Joe's a big fan of his. And when Bob saw him and told Joe what a big Mets fan he was, I think that showed where Bob was.

SI: Any chance you two will be co-hosting the Oscars next year?

Crystal: (long pause) No.

Torre: Unless you know something that I don't because normally that takes place during the end of the spring training. Do you have a feeling that this is my last year?

--Richard Deitsch

Issue date: February 24, 2002

 

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