At 78, Billy Crystal may be the coolest grandpa ever. The kind who will not only have some Werther’s Originals in the pocket of his blue cardigan and loose-fitting jeans, but also be ready to regale you with some truly memorable stories from back in the day. And boy does Crystal have stories. In his new one-man Broadway show, 860, the star offers an enticingly comedic nostalgia tour through his half-century-plus career in Hollywood.
Two decades ago, Crystal helped invent the standup as memoir genre with his hit show 700 Sundays, recounting his childhood in Long Island in the 1950s and ’60s and the death of his father, a music producer and record store owner, when the future star was just 15. In 860, he picks up his story roughly from that point, starting with his days as an NYU film student in the 1970s (“before it was Tisched”) under fast-talking Professor Martin Scorsese; his early days as an aspiring comic opening for temperamental rock bands like Blood, Sweat and Tears; and his big break impersonating Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali at a sports awards show — in front of Ali himself, who adopted the young comic as his “little brother” and friend.
He delivers anecdotes from his 1980s stint on SNL (which proved so popular that Henry Kissinger told him, “You look mahvelous” to his face); his nine-time hosting duties at the Oscars, and his big-screen successes in films like City Slickers and When Harry Met Sally… (on that set, he admitted to surprising Meg Ryan with an improvised riff about “too much pepper on my paprikash” in a funny voice that bewildered his co-star even as she played along).
There’s also some pathos here. Crystal frames his show around the tragic loss of his longtime family home — on 860 Chautauqua Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles — in last year’s deadly wildfires. Scott Pask’s set features mementos from his office in that home, including his many Emmys, and we see others projected along the patio theater’s back wall at various points (video design by Hana S. Kim and Kylee Loera). There’s the signed Mickey Mantle baseball, the garden stone etched with the word LAUGHTER that survived the blaze, and the photos with Ali, Norman Lear, and other legends with whom he worked.
This is a comfy cardigan of a show, full of warm reminiscences and genial impressions of everyone from Jack Nicholson to Robin Williams to Robin Williams doing Ronald Reagan in the afterlife. (“It’s hotter than I thought it would be… I’m in a hot tub with Roy Cohn and his balls are resting on the bridge of my nose.”) Crystal takes gentle swipes at conservative bête noires such as Kissinger, Kash Patel, and Donald Trump — but they come off more as a rope-a-dope to fill out the routine than punches meant to deliver a knockout.
With his round face, twinkly eyes, and slight paunch, Crystal looks like his reputation: the most edgeless comic of his generation. His fans love him for just this quality, and 860 delivers the kind of sentimental nostalgia to satisfy them. He’s a talented man who came by his fame honestly and deservedly, without the sort of sharp-elbowed striving that can seem off-putting. Here, he acknowledges the challenges of aging, the looming shadow of mortality that the destruction of his home and the death of his buddy Rob Reiner forced him to confront head-on. (In a concession to his age, two screens affixed to the theater’s mezzanine scroll through the show’s script, but he never seems to be reading from these aides-mémoire outright.)
Instead of dwelling on what he’s lost, or all that he stands to lose as he ages, he defaults to jokes. “We go to Pilates four times week,” he says at one point, “it’s a great little Greek restaurant.” Grandpa Crystal knows just how to entertain us, and to put us at ease even in the face of profound loss. By the end of 860, you’ll be tempted to offer him a warm hug instead of a standing ovation. ★★★★☆
860
Imperial Theatre, Broadway
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes (no intermission)
Tickets on sale through January 3 for $84 to $399