Billy Crystal's 2 Kids: All About Jennifer and Lindsay

Actor Billy Crystal might be known forever to many as Harry from the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally, but to Jennifer Crystal Foley and Lindsay Crystal, he’s always been Dad.

Billy and his wife Janice welcomed their daughters in 1973 and 1977.

In a 2013 interview with U.K. newspaper The Guardian, Billy said the secret to being a good parent is not to try to be your child’s friend. He explained, “We knew we had to be their parents. A lot of parents nowadays try to be friends with their kids, and I don't think that works.”

“Ultimately you will be friends as they get older, but when they are growing up you really have to know who you are and who they are,” he added.

In 2023, Billy was among the 46th annual Kennedy Center Honorees and afterward spoke to CBS Mornings about how it felt to be awarded the honor in front of his daughters.

"This is what I felt, because looking, I'm wearing the (Kennedy Center Honors) medallion at the dinner. They just put it around your neck. And now, officially being this person, you're an honoree. And I look out and there's my two beautiful daughters, Jenny and Lindsay," he told the outlet.

He also explained how he hoped his own approach to work had been a lesson for his girls.

"I always wanted them to know that if I had to be away it was because I was doing what I had to do, and something that made me happy, and that the lesson for your life is whatever you're doing, be happy in what you're doing," said Crystal.

Billy and Janice are also grandparents to four. Here is everything to know about their daughters Jennifer and Lindsay Crystal.

Jennifer Crystal Foley, 51

Billy and Janice’s oldest daughter, Jennifer, was born on Jan. 26, 1973. She graduated from Northwestern University in 1994.

Jennifer is also an actor, and has most notably starred as Christie Parker in TV shows Once and Again, as Rachael Taub on House, and in 2003 movie, They Would Love You In France.

In 2001, Billy urged Jennifer to audition for the role of Pat Maris, the wife of baseball player Roger Maris, in the movie 61* which he was starring in, according to a later interview the actress gave to the New York Post.

Jennifer later told the outlet about the conversation with her father: “I have to give you a shot; I can’t deny you a shot,’ my dad said to me, about trying out for the role of Pat, Roger Maris’s wife," she said at the time.

She also revealed that Billy didn't tell Barry Pepper, who starred as Roger, that Jennifer was his daughter, though he did coach her on how she might win the role.

“He told me, ‘You have to win this, and all of me is hoping that you’ll be right for it, but do your work and earn it and let’s hope you read well with Barry Pepper, [who had been cast as Maris] and match up," Jennifer told the New York Post at the time.

She was ultimately cast in the role. Jennifer and her father also worked together in City Slickers and Father’s Day.

They also joined forces in 2012’s Parental Guidance, about a pair of grandparents (played by Billy and the actress Bette Midler) who are left a long list of rules by their daughter (Marisa Tomei) when she leaves her three children in their care.

Jennifer and her husband Michael Foley, who was her college boyfriend according to CNN, married in September 2000. They are parents to two daughters, Ella Ryan Foley and Dylan Frances Foley.

“When my daughter Jenny was pregnant with our first grandchild, Ella, it was very profound for me because Jenny is my firstborn daughter,” Billy told The Guardian in 2013.

Lindsay Crystal, 47

Lindsay joined the family on Oct. 21, 1977. Like her father and sister, she is also in the entertainment industry.

Though she made her onscreen debut in her father’s film City Slickers (and even had a role in the sequel, City Slickers 2), these days Lindsay works as a producer and director, including as a producer on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

According to IMDB, her credits include projects for HBO, Comedy Central, NBC, the Sundance Channel, and Disney+, and she also worked as a co-executive producer of politics podcast Pod Save America. According to her website, her documentary film My Uncle Berns was an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival.

In 2012, Lindsay directed her dad and Helen Mirren in the Funny or Die short titled When Harry Met Sally 2, which also featured her sister Jennifer as well as Mike Tyson and Maya Rudolph.

The following year, Billy spoke to Today’s Parent about his role as a grandfather to his daughter’s children, including Lindsay's two sons.

At the time, his latest grandchild, Lindsay's youngest boy, was 3 months old. As well as welcoming a son in 2013, she already had another boy.

"The girls are 10 and seven and the little guy is three-and-a-half," Billy explained to the outlet at the time. "I had to explain what I did for a living and I showed them Monsters, Inc. — because I couldn't show them the orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally... (laughs)," he added.

“I had to be Mike Wazowski every time I saw them for about a year after that. I was Grandpa Mike and I could only talk like him,” he explained of his grandchildren.

“But now they've seen me on billboards for the Oscars and they're used to it. They came to see (the 2012 family movie) Parental Guidance and my seven-year-old granddaughter said to my daughter, ‘Mom, do people know Grandma is married to Billy Crystal?’ ”