The comedy legend who was terrified of Martin Scorsese: “He would be very scary”
Though he comes across as a cuddly old man these days, Martin Scorsese has proven over the decades that his mind is capable of some truly twisted stuff. The violent content of movies like Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, and Cape Fear betrays an imagination that contains some dark depths. Most of Scorsese’s more visceral scenes are done for a purpose, usually to establish a character as a villain or to convey some sort of flaw in our society, but that doesn’t make them any easier to watch.
His movies might be pretty harrowing, but they’re nothing compared to the man himself. That’s according to Billy Crystal. The comedian has never appeared in one of Scorsese’s movies, but did study under him at New York University’s School of Fine Arts. The director taught classes shortly after obtaining his masters degree from the institution in 1968. Crystal attended the school in 1970, alongside future success stories Christopher Guest and Oliver Stone, who also had some interesting things to say about Scorsese and his teaching methods.
As for Billy, he sat down with the Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist podcast to reminisce about his school days with Professor Marty. “[He] had a big beard and granny glasses and hair down to his shoulders. He looked like everybody,” Crystal recalled (via Variety) “He’d stand behind you while you were editing your film and he would be very scary, because he would look and he was so intense and he would speak very quickly – even then – he spoke quicker then because he was, you know, 50 years younger.”
By this point, Scorsese had just one movie to his name, the 1967 drama Who’s That Knocking at My Door? Not only was this the director’s first picture, but it also marked the screen debut of Harvey Keitel, marking the start of a lengthy relationship between the pair. This caught the attention of legendary producer Roger Corman, who fronted the money for Scorsese’s next venture, 1972’s Boxcar Bertha. The rest, as they say, is history.
As for Crystal, he was born in New York, but originally moved to Huntington, West Virginia to attend university. It was only because of Janice Goldfinger, his high school sweetheart and later wife, that he moved back to the Big Apple. He took up film and television directing as his major, which is what brought him into contact with Scorsese. If hadn’t been for Janice, Crystal wouldn’t have established himself on the New York comedy scene, which meant he wouldn’t have eventually found his way into the cast of Saturday Night Live. Things might have gone very differently for him.
Crystal has directed a handful of feature films across his career, including cult favourite comedy-drama Mr. Saturday Night. Clearly some of what Scorsese said actually got through, even if he did scare the stuffing out of him.
Many years later, things would come full circle regarding Scorsese’s time at NYU. In 2021, the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation, which was set up by fellow director George Lucas and his wife Mellody, gave the largest donation in the history of the university’s Tisch School of the Arts. This was to set up a brand new facility at the school graciously named the ‘Martin Scorsese Institute of Global Cinematic Arts’. They really missed a trick by not inviting Crystal to host the unveiling ceremony.
