Billy Crystal has offered a two-word explanation for his long marriage to his wife, Janice. Asked at PaleyFest NY how the couple have stayed together for 56 years, the 78-year-old comedian pointed to his wife and said simply: “Ask her.” He made the remark on Monday 12 October at The Paley Museum in New York, where he received the festival’s first PaleyFest Award.
The honour, introduced this year to recognise achievement in television, media and entertainment, was presented during an evening conversation moderated by Whoopi Goldberg. The talk looked back over Crystal’s career, from television to When Harry Met Sally, and also celebrated his latest Broadway project. In his acceptance speech, Crystal described Janice as the love of his life, and much of the evening returned to the theme of family. Goldberg steered the conversation between memories of his early years and the new production. The couple’s story goes back six decades. They met as teenagers in Long Beach, New York, in the summer of 1966 and married on 4 June 1970, marking their 56th anniversary this June. Crystal joked that he had worn Janice down and would not let her go, before revealing that it was she who proposed. They have two daughters, Jennifer and Lindsay, and four grandchildren.
Their partnership now extends to the stage. Janice is a producer on 860, the new solo show that Crystal has written and performs at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre under the direction of Scott Ellis. “I’m sleeping with the producer,” Crystal quipped, calling it an old Hollywood story. The show draws on family life in that house, and its title comes from the street number of the couple’s former home in Pacific Palisades, California, where they lived for 46 years before it was destroyed by wildfires in January 2025.
Previews of 860 began on 1 October, and the production officially opens on 21 October. It is scheduled to run until 3 January 2027. The PaleyFest award and the new show mark a busy autumn for Crystal, whose career has taken in stand-up, film and hosting duties at the Academy Awards. For the comedian, the evening in New York offered a chance to look back on that career and to give his wife and producer, who has been at his side since 1966, much of the credit for it.
