Billy Crystal — comedian with roots in the Russian Empire
William Edward Crystal was born in Manhattan on 14 March 1948, the youngest of three sons of Jack Crystal and Helen, née Gabler, and grew up in Long Beach, on Long Island. His father ran the Commodore Music Store, founded by Helen's father, Julius Gabler, and worked for the jazz label Commodore Records, founded by her brother Milt Gabler. The family was Jewish, of Russian and Austrian origin; Julius Gabler had emigrated from Austria. Crystal's connection to the Russian Empire runs through his grandparents' generation.
Accepting the Critics' Choice Lifetime Achievement Award on 13 March 2022, he dedicated it to the relatives whose laughter had filled the family living room in Long Beach, and said that many of them came from Rostov-on-Don and that his grandmothers were from Odessa and Kyiv. Published sources do not name the grandmothers or say when they emigrated. His father died when he was fifteen, and his one-man show 700 Sundays is about his parents and his childhood.
He studied at Marshall University on a baseball scholarship and graduated from New York University's film and television programme in 1970. His television breakthrough came as Jodie Dallas in the ABC sitcom Soap (1977-1981), and in 1984 he hosted Saturday Night Live and then joined its cast for the 1984-85 season. In 1989 he took a comedy tour to the Soviet Union, filmed for HBO as Billy Crystal: Midnight Train to Moscow, which made him the first American comedian to perform there and won him an Emmy.
His films include When Harry Met Sally... (1989), directed by Rob Reiner, City Slickers (1991), Mr. Saturday Night (1992), which he directed and co-wrote, and Analyze This (1999), and he is the voice of Mike Wazowski in Monsters, Inc. (2001). He directed the HBO film 61* (2001), about the 1961 home-run race, and hosted the Academy Awards nine times between 1990 and 2012.
700 Sundays opened on Broadway in 2004 and won the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event in 2005. He received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2007, returned to Broadway in 2022 with a musical version of Mr. Saturday Night, and received Kennedy Center Honors in 2023.
"His family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Austria; by his own account his grandmothers came from Odessa and Kyiv and many relatives from Rostov-on-Don."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Odessa and Kiev (grandmothers, by his own account); other relatives from Rostov-on-Don; maternal grandfather from Austria
Born in Manhattan in 1948 to a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia and Austria. Accepting a lifetime award in 2022, he said his grandmothers came from Odessa and Kyiv and many of his relatives from Rostov-on-Don. In 1989 he toured the Soviet Union for the HBO special Midnight Train to Moscow.
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Odessa and Kiev (grandmothers, by his own account); other relatives from Rostov-on-Don; maternal grandfather from Austria. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.