The show, scheduled to tour through April, promises to feel like an intimate chat with the audience \u00a0\u2014 a blend of standup with a \u201csit-down\u201d interview with Crystal, moderated at many shows by comedian and actor Bonnie Hunt. Crystal, who lives in Los Angeles, will tell stories, talk about the world as he sees it, reflect on his life and show some film clips from his long career.<\/p>\n
Of course, the\u00a0popular nine-time Oscar host has numerous iconic films and roles to choose from: The title character in the quintessential rom-com “When Harry Met Sally;” the grouchy “miracle worker” in “The Princess Bride;” Mitch, a New Yorker heading toward a midlife crisis who goes on a cattle drive with his buddies in “City Slickers;” and in “Analyze This,” a shrink to Robert De Niro’s mob boss.<\/p>\n
But before he was charming millions, Crystal, 68, was entertaining his family and friends while growing up in the quaint beach town of Long Beach, New York. Then a\u00a0predominately Jewish and Italian town, Crystal describes it as the \u201cperfect place to grow up.\u201d He often references his\u00a0beloved hometown in his act, and in the aftermath of\u00a0Hurricane Sandy\u2019s battering of New York<\/a>\u00a0in 2012, Crystal and his wife of nearly 47 years, Janice, helped raise more than one million dollars to help Long Beach rebuild and rebound.<\/p>\n Crystal\u2019s early childhood, back in the 1950s, was filled with music and laughter. His mother, Helen, was a talented tap dancer and singer. His father, Jack, worked six days a week at two jobs — as a jazz promoter and manager of the family\u2019s popular New York City record store. Jazz greats like Billie Holiday \u2014 who were friends of his parents \u2014 would frequent their home.<\/p>\n Crystal and his dad would spend most Sundays together watching baseball games.\u00a0Their relationship was chronicled in Crystal\u2019s Tony Award-winning one-man show “700 Sundays” (also adapted into a book and HBO special), named for the number of Sundays he spent with his father before his dad died of a heart attack when Crystal was only 15.<\/p>\n The only thing Crystal ever aspired to do as much as comedy was play baseball for his beloved New York Yankees \u2014 in fact, he says the highlight of his long career came in 2008 ,when he signed a one-day contract with the team in honor of his 60th birthday.<\/p>\n In a phone interview with JTA, Crystal looked\u00a0back on his family, his Jewish identity, his long career and the “one thing” that keeps him going.<\/p>\n JTA: You seem to be a celebrity who wears your Judaism as a badge of honor, and not in a self-hating sort of way. Would you agree?<\/strong><\/p>\n Billy Crystal: I do. I mean, I still make fun, but it\u2019s not about Jews \u2014 it\u2019s about\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0Jews, it\u2019s about\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0relatives. It\u2019s not generalizations.<\/p>\n What are some of your favorite parts about being Jewish?<\/strong><\/p>\n You mean, besides the circumcision?<\/p>\n You remember that, huh?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, oh yeah, that\u2019s why I\u2019m an insomniac. I\u2019m waiting for that guy to come back in the room.<\/p>\n What else do you love about being Jewish?<\/strong><\/p>\n The storytelling, the warmth, the sense of humor. My dad was strict about the holidays. We honored them, we went to temple. I like the ritual, and the caring for our planet that\u2019s written into so many of the works I read in Hebrew school.<\/p>\n How do you compare when you were just starting out in showbiz 4o-plus years ago to touring with your new show today?<\/strong><\/p>\n It all feels the same. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve stopped working since the eighth grade. Backstage, when I was on Broadway, felt the same as it did backstage when I was getting ready to do a school play in high school. It\u2019s that same energy of confidence, a little bit of nerves \u2026 The moment you go out, you release and say, \u2018OK, I\u2019m ready, here I come.\u2019 It\u2019s kind of an intoxicating feeling to go out and entertain people. Besides signing to a one-day contract with the New York Yankees, what\u2019s another of your proudest professional achievements?<\/strong><\/p>\n I was the first American comedian to perform in the Soviet Union back in 1989 in an HBO special called \u201cMidnight Train to Moscow.\u201d It was a Russian-speaking audience [with] some Americans. Gorbachev was in power, the [Berlin] Wall had not come down yet, and [I felt honored] that HBO trusted me. I found all these relatives that I didn\u2019t know I had there [in Russia]. But performing there and being an ambassador, if you will, for American humor in that country is something I look back on with great pride.<\/p>\n What did your father teach you during those \u201c700 Sundays,\u201d before he passed away?<\/strong><\/p>\n Besides teaching me a love for comedy, a love for reading, a love for baseball, he also taught me about doing the right thing. My dad was a civil rights giant in his own quiet way, in that he was one of the first promoters to integrate jazz bands. So the house, yes, was filled with Jewish relatives with stories, but sitting next to them was Zutty Singleton, who was a great jazz drummer, or Tyree Glenn, who was Louie Armstrong\u2019s trombone player, or any of these other great musicians. They were all just friends. My family label \u2014\u00a0Commodore Records<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 produced \u201cStrange Fruit,\u201d which is Billie Holliday\u2019s epic song about lynching. It took a Jewish family to produce that record, to write that song.<\/p>\n How did your father\u2019s premature death shape your life and your relationship with your mother?<\/strong><\/p>\n I was 15 and was dealt a bad hand. You can\u2019t help but be angry, and I was angry and had to learn to live with that, and to deal with my mother, who was suddenly widowed and forced back into the workforce. [Being] back home alone with her, while my brothers were away at college, made me grow up really fast. I admired her strength \u2014 at the age of 50 she was suddenly back in the workforce. Three sons in school and we all graduated college because of her. You watch that and learn what parenting is really about, and what being a son is really about. My mom sent me on a path of trying to do the right thing in my life and also valuing every moment that you live.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your secret to your happy, healthy and long marriage?<\/strong><\/p>\n We still feel that we\u2019re dating. After all these years, and all the things that we\u2019ve been through, and all the joys and sadness that we\u2019ve shared together \u2014 right from the beginning: You\u2019re 18 and you have to tell the in-laws [that] you\u2019re going to be a comedian.<\/p>\n But Janice\u2019s faith in me, her trust in me, her strength when things aren\u2019t going well. Our key is we keep laughing, we keep talking and we keep loving.<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to remind you about a scene from your own movie, “City Slickers.” Curly, a cowboy, asks your character, Mitch, if you know the secret to life. Then, Curly holds up one finger and says \u201cOne thing.\u201d What I took Curly to mean is that each of us have to find that one thing that give our lives meaning. What is that one thing, or maybe a couple of things, that give you purpose?<\/strong><\/p>\n The purpose is Janice and the kids, and continually doing right by them and right by myself. That\u2019s the most important thing \u2026 and in my job, I have a purpose. I have a mind that still loves to create and I follow that deeply.<\/p>\n (Cindy Sher is the Executive Editor of Chicago\u2019s JUF News.)<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThat\u2019s why, after all these years, I\u2019m going back on the road with this show \u2026 At this age and this point in my career, to still have the hunger I did as a young man is a great feeling.<\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")