Billy Crystal

Actor

• Born: March 14, 1948
• Place of Birth: Long Beach, Long Island, New York

ACTOR, ENTERTAINER, AND WRITER

Crystal is a comedian, an actor, a voice artist, a director, a producer, and a writer. He first captured national attention playing Jodie Dallas on the television series Soap, and he continued to charm audiences with his talents as an actor, in game show appearances, and as a guest host on television programs and award shows.

AREA OF ACHIEVEMENT: Entertainment

Early Life

Billy Crystal was born in Doctors Hospital in Manhattan to Jewish American parents. He was youngest of three sons of Jack Crystal, the manager of Commodore Music Shop, a producer of jazz concerts, and a record company executive, and Helen Gabler, a housewife and a performer at the family’s temple. His uncle, Milt Gabler, was a record producer, and his grandparents were involved with Yiddish theater. When he was two years old, Crystal and his family moved from the Bronx to Long Beach, New York. As children, he and his brothers enjoyed doing shtick, bit comedy routines for their family members. Show business contacts that Crystal made through his father and uncle as a youngster helped him realize that he enjoyed performing. He took pleasure in sports, particularly baseball, and comedy. By the time he was sixteen years old, he had begun performing at clubs. In 1964, he emceed for his school variety show. He was captain of his high school baseball team; he enjoyed wrestling, football, and soccer; and he was nominated as the wittiest student in his high school class.

After graduating from Long Beach High School, Crystal briefly attended Marshall University, in Huntington, West Virginia, on a baseball scholarship. When the baseball program was eliminated for lack of funds, he left Marshall University after one year. While in attendance there, he hosted a university radio show. He transferred to Nassau Community College in Garden City, Long Island, as a theater major. While at Nassau, he directed a musical, The Apple Tree (1966), and spent several summers working with the college’s Alumni Theater Group. In 1969, he joined two of his college friends to form an improvisational troupe that was variously called the Three C’s, We the People, Comedy Jam, and Three’s Company. The threesome toured and entertained at clubs, in coffee shops, and on college campuses. Crystal earned a bachelor’s degree in television and film direction from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. While still a student at NYU, he was the house manager for the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1971). On June 4, 1970, he married Janice Goldfinger, a secretary and guidance counselor, whom he had met in college. Crystal toured and supplemented their income as a substitute teacher at Long Beach Junior High School.

Life’s Work

Following college graduation, Crystal, his wife, and their firstborn daughter, Jennifer, relocated to California. One night, while he was giving a stand-up comedy performance at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, executives from the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) viewed his solo nightclub act. ABC’s Norman Lear hired him to appear as Meathead’s friend in several episodes of All in the Family and as a guest on Howard Cosell’s variety show. He also performed as the opening act for musicians, including Billy Joel, Barry Manilow and Neil Sedaka.

Crystal was cast as Jodie Dallas, the first explicitly homosexual role for a main character on television, in 1977. This character’s portrayal on the new television series Soap gave him publicity and led to film opportunities, including the lead role in Joan Rivers’s Rabbit Test (1978), a film about Lionel Carpenter, the first pregnant man. Crystal’s second daughter, Lindsay, was born in 1977. During the late 1970s, he performed in ABC’s SST—Death Flight (1977), the National Broadcasting Company’s (NBC) Human Feelings (1978), ABC’s Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (1979), and NBC’s Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb (1980).

Crystal portrayed the Master of Ceremonies in a summer production of Cabaret (1966) in 1981. On Saturday, January 30, 1982, Crystal appeared with comedian Robin Williams in the first of five episodes of NBC’s Billy Crystal Comedy Hour. Throughout the early 1980s, he guest-starred in several situation comedies; he acted in various television dramas and films; and he toured in nightclubs and on college campuses. He was also a featured voice in Animalympics: Winter Games (1980). During this time, he created impressions of Sammy Davis, Jr., Joe Franklin, and Fernando Lamas that became popular attractions in his shows. From 1984 to 1985, Crystal joined the cast of NBC’s Saturday Night Live and earned accolades for his performances. He appeared in a number of films in the 1980s, including This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Running Scared (1986), The Princess Bride (1987), Throw Momma from the Train (1987), Memories of Me (1988), and When Harry Met Sally . . . (1989). With Dick Schaap, he wrote and published Absolutely Mahvelous, his autobiography, in 1986.

During the 1990s, Crystal’s talents were used in fourteen films. In many of his films, including City Slickers (1991) and City Slickers II (1994), Crystal played a role in and produced the film. In 1992, he wrote, directed, and produced Mr. Saturday Night. He did likewise for Forget Paris in 1995. In 2001, he directed 61*, a baseball movie for television.

Crystal wrote, produced, and acted in America’s Sweethearts(2001) and acted in and was executive producer for Analyze That (2002). He had voice roles in Monsters, Inc. (2001), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone (2002), and Cars (2006). In 2010, Crystal played Jerry in Tooth Fairy. Crystal hosted the Academy Awards show six times during the 1990s and in 2000, 2004, and 2012. As of 2016, only Bob Hope had hosted the show more times. For 2013's Monsters University, Crystal reprised his role as the voice of the loveable one-eyed monster Mike Wazowski, which had been made popular by the success of Monsters, Inc. That same year, he published a memoir titled Still Foolin' 'em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?

In 2015, Crystal returned to television on a new, mockumentary-style comedy show called The Comedians, which he starred in alongside Josh Gad. He was disappointed to learn that, following mixed critical acclaim, the show did not attract a large enough audience and was subsequently canceled by FX after one season.

Crystal won a Tony Award in 2005 for 700 Sundays (2004), a solo play based on his childhood and his parents. He brought the show back to Broadway for two months in 2014, filming one of the productions for HBO, which received four Emmy nominations. He starred in the film Falling Down in 2020, opposite Ben Schwartz, and in Here Today with Tiffany Haddish in 2021. Crystal returned to the stage in 2022 with Mr. Saturday Night, a musical version of his 1992 film of the same name. The show received five Tony nominations, including Best Musical and Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

Crystal hosted the Grammy Awards three times. Crystal has been nominated for Golden Globe Awards, and he has won Emmy, America Comedy, Hasty Pudding Man-of-the-Year, MTV Movie, Scopus, and CableACE Awards. He was made a Disney Legend and received the Critics' Choice Lifetime Achievement Award. Crystal was chosen to be one of the 46th annual Kennedy Center Honorees. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Crystal is the author of two children’s books, I Already Know I Love You (2004) and Grandpa’s Little One (2006). He has also written books for adults: Absolutely Mahvelous (1986), 700 Sundays (2005), Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys? (2013), and Have a Nice Day (2018). From March 12 to March 14, 2008, marking his sixtieth birthday, he held a minor league contract with the New York Yankees. He is one of the owners of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Significance

Crystal is a familiar face in comedy and is known for his signature lines “You look mahvelous” and “I hate when that happens.” His charity work included Comic Relief Telethons with Whoopi Goldberg and the late Robin Williams. He helped support the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund when he autographed a Harley-Davidson that was auctioned off for the cause. His other charities included the Dream Foundation, which fulfills dreams for adults with terminal illnesses, and the Museum of Tolerance, a Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum, dedicated to promoting education on the Holocaust and to eliminating prejudice. Crystal is a member of the American Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has created a video that promotes the education and research conducted at the institute. Billy Crystal Peace Through Performing Arts Project connects Jewish and Arab students in performing arts workshops that promote peace and understanding.

Bibliography

Crystal, Billy. Seven Hundred Sundays. New York: Warner, 2005. Print.

Crystal, Billy. Still Foolin' 'em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys? New York: Holt, 2013. Print.

Crystal, Billy, and Dick Schaap. Absolutely Mahvelous. New York: Putnam’s, 1986. Print.

Crystal, Billy, and Josh Gad. "Billy Crystal and Josh Gad on Their New FX Meta-Comedy The Comedians." Interview by Dan Snierson. Entertainment Weekly. Entertainment Weekly, 9 Apr. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Fischler, Marcelle S. “700 Memories of Childhood in Long Beach.” The New York Times. New York Times, 27 Feb. 2005. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Itzkoff, Dave. "Let Him Entertain You: Billy Crystal Returns to Broadway." The New York Times, 22 June 2023, www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/theater/billy-crystal-broadway-mr-saturday-night.html. Accessed 30 Aug. 2024.

King, Gayle, et al. "Billy Crystal on His Iconic Career and Why 'When Harry Met Sally...' Is One of His Most Memorable Movies." CBS News, 19 Dec. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/theater/billy-crystal-broadway-mr-saturday-night.html. Accessed 30 Aug. 2024.