Billy Crystal · His friend of forty-two years
Muhammad Ali
A comedian eulogizing perhaps the most famous athlete of the century, to a full arena and a live broadcast. He spends a good part of it doing an impression of Ali, and still says the truest thing anyone said that day.
- Year
- 2016
- Where
- Louisville, Kentucky
- Full text
- Under copyright
“He was a tremendous bolt of lightning created by Mother Nature out of thin air.”
This speech is still under copyright, so we quote a single line and stop there. The notes below are our own.
Why it works
It is funny, and that is the respect
He does the voice. He tells stories only a close friend could tell, and he gets an arena laughing at a memorial service. Refusing to be funny about a funny person is not dignity. It gives the room someone they would not recognize.
He speaks from one friendship, not from the record
Everybody watching already knew the titles, the exile and the comeback. What only Crystal had was forty-two years of private friendship with the public man, so that is what the speech is made of. Your material is what only you knew about them.
It is built for the room
Short lines, long pauses and laughs placed where the room needs to breathe. The speech works for an arena and a broadcast at the same time, with enough space for both the laughter and the grief.
Use this in your own
If they were funny, be funny. The room came to recognize them, and a eulogy that refuses to laugh describes somebody else.