Palisades Fire Loss Anchors Crystal's Broadway Show

Billy Crystal’s Pacific Palisades home burned in the Palisades fire. He and his family had lived there since 1979, and the loss now anchors his solo Broadway show, “860.” The production opened Wednesday night at the Imperial Theatre. It runs 90 minutes without an intermission.

The Home and the Fire

Crystal named the show for 860 Chautauqua Blvd., the address of the house his family occupied for 46 years. On a set designed by Scott Pask to resemble Crystal’s home office, he re-creates the evacuation and fire. Hana S. Kim and Kylee Loera created the video design.

The Los Angeles Times said the story opens on Jan. 7, 2025, when a wildfire that began in the Santa Monica Mountains headed toward the house and evacuation orders came in. Crystal recounts deciding what to take, then driving with his wife, Janice, toward their daughter’s home. They drove separate cars down a jam-packed Sunset Boulevard as smoke and embers spread. He narrates the trip like a baseball play-by-play.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the family’s house burned on Jan. 25, 2025, and no family members were hurt. The fire killed 12 people and destroyed nearly 7,000 structures, the Tribune reported. The house, a 1930s ranch-style structure, had a Hollywood history.

The home held photographs, awards, baseball memorabilia and keepsakes from Crystal’s entertainment career. Those belongings also marked the family life he built there with Janice and their two daughters. Crystal’s World Series rings survived. So did a rock from his office engraved with “Laughter.” The Los Angeles Times reported that a garden stone bearing the same word was among the few items the family salvaged.

A Family’s Years in Pacific Palisades

Crystal recalls finding the house with Janice. While filming the third season of “Soap,” created by Susan Harris, he lived with his wife and daughters in an apartment in Hancock Park. They wanted cleaner air for their children, and someone told them about Pacific Palisades.

Crystal calls the community “a small town, good schools, beautiful afternoon breezes from the nearby ocean, one main street with some shops, a deli named Mort’s that had lean corned beef and a lot of people who didn’t put mayonnaise on pastrami.” After looking at a different house, the family spotted the for-sale sign at 860 Chautauqua. Their real estate agent said the owners “were very motivated to sell because they were very motivated not to be together anymore.” They moved in during December 1979 with a 30-year mortgage.

Two women who grew up in the house later welcomed the family. They said they were glad their former home was back in the hands of show people. The original owners were vaudevillians with a mind-reading act, interested in the occult, who socialized with performers including Will Rogers, a regular visitor on horseback. Crystal found a hidden room behind a secret wall. It held a corkboard and clippings.

Career, Friendship and Loss

Photographs and memorabilia on the office set lead into stories about Crystal’s work as a comedian, actor, filmmaker and Oscar host. He graduated from NYU in 1970 and took a film production class with a young Martin Scorsese, who critiqued his work. The Los Angeles Times called Crystal the “Al Hirschfeld of celebrity impersonators.”

Crystal remembers opening for Blood, Sweat & Tears in Scranton, Pennsylvania, before a hostile audience. After frontman David Clayton-Thomas decided not to perform, Crystal went onstage again, then a third time. He says he felt he’d found his calling and voice while driving home on the New Jersey Turnpike to his wife and baby.

The show also revisits Crystal’s friendship with Robin Williams and his relationship with Rob Reiner. Norman Lear cast Crystal as Reiner’s best friend on “All in the Family.” Their collaborations included the fake-orgasm scene at Katz’s Delicatessen in “When Harry Met Sally.” The New York Post said Crystal’s memories of Muhammad Ali, Williams and Reiner connect to losses since his previous solo Broadway show, “700 Sundays.”

The final act turns to the family’s years in Pacific Palisades. During their 50th wedding anniversary, which fell during COVID, their children and grandchildren turned the backyard into a restaurant and played waiters. The New York Times called “860” a “warm and very funny memoir of a solo play”; the Los Angeles Times described it as a meditation on loss and a theatrical memoir of Crystal’s career.