NEW YORK — In 2022, Billy Crystal hoofed it back to Broadway as a caustic standup comic in “Mr. Saturday Night,” a musical adaptation of his 1992 film.
Four years later, he’s lighting up the New York stage once again in “860,” an autobiographical one-man show that emotionally recounts how Crystal and his family lost their home in Los Angeles’ Palisades Fire in early 2025. Although he’s relieved of song-and-dance duties this go-around, it’s a far more taxing endeavor than the schmaltzy “Mr. Saturday Night.”
“This is totally different,” Crystal tells USA TODAY. “That was a really fun thing to do. This is a human story and a personal story, so I'm just glad to be able to get a chance to do it.”
Crystal, 78, and his wife of 56 years, Janice, were together
at home with their two grown children — Jennifer, 53, and Lindsay, 48 — when they received the devastating news that they would need to evacuate their California abode.
Since then, Crystal’s support system has been “my family,” he told USA TODAY on the PaleyFest red carpet Oct. 12. “My daughters and of course, Janice, who has been by my side all of these years [and is] producing the show. This is our story. What's the song? ‘Lean on Me?’ I lean on them.”
Crystal, a six-time Emmy winner, was on hand at the Paley Center in Midtown to receive the inaugural PaleyFest Award, honoring his creativity and cultural significance over the last half-century. He also sat down for an hourlong conversation with longtime friend Whoopi Goldberg as they discussed career milestones, including Crystal’s one-season run on “Saturday Night Live” and nine times hosting the Oscars.
But the crux of their onstage discussion revolved around Crystal’s theater work. “860” is his third Broadway outing after “700 Sundays,” which played in both 2004 and 2013. The show was a reflection on his jazz-promoter father, Jack, who died of a heart attack when Crystal was 15.
“Bringing that to the stage here in New York was a really cathartic experience,” Crystal told Goldberg.
“860,” meanwhile, is named for the street number of his former home address. Crystal and his family moved into that house in 1979, and through this one-man show, he wanted to find a way to process all the memories of living there for 46 years.
“It became really hilarious and touching at the same time,” Crystal recalled of writing the 90-minute play. “I needed to do it to keep the horror away, but turn it into something.
“My show’s not just about loss,” he continued. “It's about a family coming together. It's about renewal. It’s about facing life at any age and saying: ‘It's not just starting over. It's moving forward.’ “
The simultaneous Palisades and Eaton wildfires are estimated to have destroyed roughly 13,000 homes across the greater Los Angeles area. A day after evacuating, Crystal learned that his house had burned down while watching TV news and Instagram reels.
“That’s how we found out that it was gone, which is really … not a great way,” Crystal told Goldberg. “A reporter from Univision trespassing on our property with a camera crew saying, ‘This was once the home of …’ Sometimes there’s humanity in the media to do the right thing, and this is one time they didn’t.”
Crystal had taken many pictures of his home office over the years. So for “860,” he worked closely with set designer Scott Pask to reconstruct a near-identical version of it for the Broadway show.
“When I'm on the set, it's everything I had but it's not real. It's my stunt office,” Crystal explained. “It’s comforting, but there’s a sadness about it. It’s what I had, but it’s not the same. It's this weird thing, but it's beautiful at the same time.”
“860” is now in preview performances with an official opening night set for Oct. 21. The show runs at the Imperial Theatre (249 W. 45th Street) in Manhattan through Jan. 3, 2027.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Billy Crystal ‘leaned on’ family after tragic LA fires | Exclusive
