Two entertainment legends, one sold-out theater, and an evening that proved the greatest comedians understand something profound about life: sometimes laughter is the only way through.

Billy Crystal- Courtesy of The Paley Museum

There are friendships in show business, and then there are friendships that have become part of entertainment history. When Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg share a stage, there is no need for manufactured chemistry, rehearsed spontaneity, or carefully orchestrated charm. Their affection is genuine, their timing impeccable, and their shared history provides enough material to keep an audience entertained for hours.

Billy Crystal- Courtesy of The Paley Museum

Such was the atmosphere at The Paley Center for Media’s annual fall festival, PaleyFest NY, where Crystal took center stage for an intimate, frequently hilarious, and unexpectedly moving conversation moderated by Goldberg. The sold-out evening at the Bennack Theater, presented with support from Citi, celebrated Crystal’s extraordinary career and his latest Broadway venture, 860.

Maureen J. Reidy and Frank A. Bennack, Jr. present the PaleyFest award to Billy Crystal at PaleyFest NY at The Paley Museum Courtesy of The Paley Museum

The evening also marked the inaugural year of the PaleyFest Award, a new honor recognizing excellence in media, television, and entertainment, presented to participating shows. It was an appropriate occasion to celebrate a performer whose career has effortlessly crossed the boundaries between stand-up comedy, television, film, Broadway, writing, producing, and directing.

Crystal has spent decades making audiences laugh, but what distinguishes him from so many comedians is his understanding that humor is not the opposite of heartbreak. Quite often, it is heartbreak’s most eloquent companion.

Goldberg, herself a formidable theatrical and cinematic presence, understood exactly where to take the conversation. Rather than simply retracing a succession of career highlights, she explored the personal experiences that have shaped Crystal’s work and his enduring love affair with live performance.

“I’m so enjoying your love of being on stage,” Goldberg told him, before offering an observation that every theater professional understands: “Live performance you get what you get. Not everybody can do it.”

Indeed, they cannot. There is an extraordinary difference between performing for a camera, where a moment can be captured again and again, and standing before a live audience, where everything happens in real time. The laughter, the silence, the unexpected emotional connection, and the occasional misstep are all part of the experience. Crystal has always understood how to make that immediacy work in his favor.

His latest Broadway project, 860, draws upon deeply personal experiences, and Crystal spoke candidly about the emotional demands of bringing such material to the stage. “Bringing that to the stage was really cathartic,” he admitted. Yet he was quick to emphasize that the work is not simply an examination of grief. “It’s not just about loss. It’s about a family coming together and it’s about renewal,” he explained, adding, “It’s not just starting over, it’s moving forward.”

That distinction is particularly revealing. Starting over suggests erasing what came before. Moving forward acknowledges that the past remains part of us, even as life insists upon continuing.

Crystal’s reflections became especially poignant when he discussed the experience of watching a community face devastation, recalling the terrifying responsibility of explaining an unfolding disaster to children.

“When you’re watching your town burn down and you know it’s coming and the kids are there and they’re young… the responsibility you feel is alright, I gotta be real with them. If I’m gonna cry, I’m gonna cry and if I’m gonna hold onto this, I’m gonna hold on to it.”

It was a moment of striking vulnerability from a man whose public identity has so often been associated with impeccable comic timing. There was no attempt to disguise fear behind a punchline or transform suffering into an easy inspirational message.

Instead, Crystal spoke about the necessity of honesty, particularly within a family confronting circumstances beyond its control.

“We were fortunate to still have each other,” he reflected. That simple acknowledgment carried considerable weight. For all the possessions, memories, and familiar surroundings that can disappear in an instant, the relationships that survive become the foundation upon which life is rebuilt. Family has always occupied a central place in Crystal’s work, and the conversation naturally turned to memories of his father, whose influence continues to resonate throughout his career.

“He had a great sense of humor. He was quiet but he loved us [the boys]… he worked so hard,” Crystal recalled.

It was a lovely glimpse into the origins of a comic sensibility that has never depended solely upon jokes. Crystal’s best work has always been rooted in observation, affection, nostalgia, and an acute understanding of the small human moments that become our most enduring memories.

Of course, no evening celebrating Billy Crystal would be complete without revisiting some of the wonderfully unpredictable turns of his career.

One of the most entertaining recollections concerned the inaugural episode of Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975. Crystal had been scheduled to appear, only to find himself cut from the broadcast. For a young performer attempting to establish himself, the experience was devastating.

“I blew it, my career is over, Lorne cut me from the show and this is over,” he remembered thinking as he returned home.

There is something delicious about hearing that story fifty-one years later, knowing what followed. The young comedian who believed one missed television appearance had destroyed his future would go on to become one of the most recognizable entertainers in America.

If ever there were an argument against allowing a single disappointment to define an entire career, Crystal’s journey provides it.

His eventual association with Saturday Night Live would become an important chapter in that career, but the larger lesson is one that extends far beyond entertainment: rejection and failure are rarely the final verdicts we imagine them to be.

Goldberg also steered the conversation toward Crystal’s working relationship with his wife, producer Janice Crystal. The couple’s longstanding partnership provided an irresistible opportunity for a little Hollywood mischief.

“You know I’m sleeping with the producer,” Crystal deadpanned. “An age-old Hollywood story.”

It was vintage Billy Crystal: affectionate, mischievous, and delivered with the effortless timing of a man who has spent a lifetime understanding exactly how long to let a joke breathe.

What made the evening particularly satisfying was the interplay between Crystal and Goldberg. These are two performers who have nothing left to prove, and that freedom creates a rare kind of conversation. They can tease one another, wander into memories, acknowledge disappointments, and speak openly about life’s more painful passages without sacrificing the humor that first brought them together.

Goldberg did not approach Crystal as a distant interviewer examining a celebrated subject. She approached him as a friend who knows the man behind the public persona, and that familiarity allowed the conversation to move naturally between comedy and confession.

It also revealed something essential about Crystal’s longevity.

His career has never been built exclusively upon the ability to make people laugh. It has been built upon his ability to make them recognize themselves. Whether recalling childhood, navigating marriage, confronting loss, or celebrating friendship, he understands that the most universal stories are often the most personal.

That understanding has carried him from television to film to Broadway and back again, without diminishing his enthusiasm for the next creative challenge.

At a time when entertainment is increasingly driven by spectacle, algorithms, and the relentless pursuit of attention, there was something wonderfully refreshing about watching two accomplished artists simply sit together and talk.

No elaborate production was necessary. No manufactured controversy. Just intelligence, affection, extraordinary comic instincts, and the accumulated wisdom of lives spent entertaining millions.

PaleyFest NY provided the setting, but Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg supplied the magic.

And if the evening offered one lasting reminder, it was that the best comedians do considerably more than make us laugh. They help us understand why, even in the most difficult moments, laughter remains worth finding.

Carrie Coon, Cynthia Nixon, and executive producer Sonja Warfield bring wit, candor, and a little old-fashioned intrigue to a sold-out evening at The Paley Center for Media.

Cynthia Nixon

New York society has always been a spectator sport, and few television series understand its delicious combination of ambition, money, manners, and manipulation quite like HBO’s The Gilded Age. At this year’s PaleyFest NY, The Paley Center for Media rolled out the red carpet for an evening devoted to the Emmy-nominated drama, offering a glimpse behind the silk curtains as the series prepares for its fourth season.

Sonja Warfield

The sold-out gathering at the Bennack Theater brought together Carrie Coon, whose formidable Bertha Russell has never met a social obstacle she couldn’t attempt to conquer; Cynthia Nixon, whose Ada Forte has emerged as one of the show’s most quietly compelling characters; and writer and executive producer Sonja Warfield, one of the creative minds responsible for keeping the machinations of Manhattan’s nineteenth-century elite so irresistible.

Jessica Shaw

Entertainment journalist Jessica Shaw moderated the conversation, which opened with a screening of the newly released trailer for the upcoming season. If there is one thing The Gilded Age has taught its audience, it is that beneath every beautifully arranged dinner table lies the possibility of social warfare.

Cynthia Nixon, Sonja Warfield, Carrie Coon

The evening also marked a new chapter for PaleyFest NY, with the introduction of the PaleyFest Award, recognizing excellence in media, television, and entertainment. Presented to participating shows, the honor adds another distinction to a festival that has become an anticipated gathering place for television’s leading creative talents. Citi helped make the evening possible.

Carrie Coon

For Coon, Bertha Russell remains a fascinating study in contradictions. Here is a woman whose ambition is practically architectural, who has spent three seasons attempting to construct an empire of social influence as formidable as her husband’s financial one. Yet Coon finds some of her greatest satisfaction in the moments when Bertha’s armor slips.

Carrie Coon

“I love Bertha’s vulnerability,” she explained. “She can be so brave and so ambitious, so when she gets to soften, I really love those moments.”

Carrie Coon

It is precisely that vulnerability that keeps Bertha from becoming merely a magnificently dressed social climber. Beneath the elaborate gowns, extravagant entertainments, and relentless determination is a mother who wants something better for her daughter, even when her methods of securing that future become questionable. Coon spoke about Bertha’s hopes for her daughter and her desire to see her enjoy opportunities that previous generations of women were denied.

Sonja Warfield, Cynthia Nixon, Carrie Coon, Sonja Warfield, Carrie Coon

Nixon, meanwhile, explored Ada’s equally compelling evolution. Once overshadowed by her commanding sister Agnes, Ada has gradually revealed an emotional life that extends well beyond the polite confines of the Van Rhijn household.

Sonja Warfield, Cynthia Nixon, Carrie Coon, Sonja Warfield, Carrie Coon

Nixon described Ada as someone “so hungry for youth, for a young person to help, a young person to nurture…a young person to live vicariously through.”

Cynthia Nixon, Sonja Warfield,, Sonja Warfield, Carrie Coon,

That longing for connection gives Ada a distinctly different kind of power from Bertha’s. Where Bertha attempts to bend society to her will, Ada seeks meaning through the people she loves. Both women, in their own ways, are negotiating how much control they can exercise over their lives in a world determined to define them.

Sonja Warfield

One of the evening’s most appealing revelations concerned Nixon’s extraordinary history with Christine Baranski, who plays the deliciously imperious Agnes van Rhijn. Their relationship stretches back more than four decades, providing a foundation that no amount of rehearsal could manufacture.

Sonja Warfield

“We are very lucky that we have our prior relationship. That we’ve known each other for 40 plus years… we don’t have to fake the intimacy,” Nixon observed.

That familiarity is evident onscreen. The sisters’ exchanges, whether affectionate, exasperated, or sharpened to a fine point, possess the effortless rhythm of two women who know exactly how to get under each other’s skin.

Behind the scenes, Warfield offered insight into the formidable task of keeping so many intertwined lives moving forward. With the third season leaving numerous storylines unresolved, the writers were hardly facing a shortage of material.

“There were so many threads that we left open in Season 3, so we knew we had a lot of supply,” she said.

And when the conversation turned to which characters come most naturally to her, Warfield singled out Agnes, whose aristocratic certainty and impeccable sense of social hierarchy apparently feel rather familiar.

“She is essentially my mother… I kind of grew up in that boujee world,” Warfield revealed.

It was a wonderfully revealing observation. The show’s humor works because its characters take their social rituals with deadly seriousness, while the audience is permitted to appreciate just how absurd those rituals can be.

Shaw captured that peculiar pleasure with a confession that surely resonated throughout the theater.

“I always love thinking about this show because I always start thinking about things I never thought I’d care about, like tassels.”

Indeed, The Gilded Age has accomplished the seemingly impossible: making the placement of a dinner guest, the acceptance of an invitation, or the details of a drawing room feel like matters of international diplomacy.

But its enduring appeal goes well beyond the spectacular costumes and lavish interiors. At its heart, the series is about power: who possesses it, who inherits it, who marries into it, and who is determined to seize it regardless of what society thinks.

For all its nineteenth-century elegance, those questions remain remarkably contemporary. The fortunes may be different, the rules of engagement more discreet, and the gowns considerably more elaborate, but the battle for influence is one New Yorkers still recognize.

As The Gilded Age looks toward its fourth season, the PaleyFest NY conversation offered an entertaining reminder of why audiences remain so invested in the fortunes of the Russells, the Van Rhijns, and their ever-expanding circle of allies and adversaries.

After all, in New York society, the only thing more entertaining than watching someone climb the social ladder is discovering who intends to pull it out from under them.

All photo’s Courtesy of The Paley Museum

G.H. Harding

VICE 2028 — When Michael Mann tried to reboot his series Miami Vice in 2006, it was a commercial and critical disappointment. Miami Vice 85, the latest reboot, is well underway with a most impressive cast, including Austin Butler and Michael B. Jordan as the series lead characters Crockett and Tubbs.

Austin Butler and Michael B. Jordan

When Vice first hit TV screens in September of 1984, audiences had rarely seen anything as ambitious or creative. Mann -and Anthony (Buffalo Club) Yerkovich- hit on something new for the small screen. NBC’s head-honcho at the time Brandon Tartikoff, called them “MTV cops.”

Anthony Yerkovich

MTV was approaching its peak (27 million households) and this TV-show captured not only that, but both the angst and joy of the go-go 80s.

It propelled Don Johnson to mega-stardom, as well as Philip Michael Thomas. The two even recorded albums, which were not bad, but never fully realized.

One major key to the show’s success was the endless streaming of hit music -from Phil Collins; Dire Straits; Steve Jones; to INXS on down. This was before music supervisors came into play and it was often the label’s PR-people that propelled songs and artists to major success. The show also employed various music stars (like Collins and Franz Zappa) as guests stars and often, they were great. Zappa, as a cool-drug merchant on a yacht was great.

PR-man David Salidor was handling PR for The Funhouse, one of the key-clubs of the time, and remembers bringing producer Michael Attanasio down to the club. “They wanted something authentic and since they were going to be shooting in NY for the second season, the club was a perfect fit.”

I was a fan and remain a fan, and even when I watched the episodes now, they’re a bit dated, buy the symbiosis of what’s on the screen and the music remain pretty outstanding.

I honesty doubt whether Mann can do it again, but interest remains high … very high. See you in 2028 Miami Vice!

Read more here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/miami-vice-85-austin-butler-michael-b-jordan-1236727734/

And here’s a great take from Yerkovich on the creation: https://intelligentcollector.com/miami-vice-creator-anthony-yerkovich-on-the-style-packed-pilot-that-changed-tv-forever/

SHORT TAKES — I watched the 1998 movie Deep Impact over the weekend and the basic plot was an asteroid was about the hit the Earth and one of the plans President Morgan Freeman came up with was to build immense silos in the mountains. Sounds a tad like the TV-showParadise, right? Amazing …

Sheryl Crow

Sheryl Crow says she’s losing major money on her new album. Interetsing article from Female First. Take a read: https://www.femalefirst.co.uk/music/musicnews/sheryl-crow-says-losing-ton-money-latest-album-reflects-fame-cancer-ageing-radio-1451871.html … Great interview on Rory Kennedy’s The Trial of Alec Baldwin. Check it out: https://deadline.com/2026/10/the-trial-of-alec-baldwin-director-rory-kennedy-interview-1237154646/ … Happy Bday Daryl Hall.

NAMES IN THE NEWS — Bill Maher; Chuck LaBella; David Bowie; Steve Walter; Frank Ucciardo; Thomas Jay; Mark Biggs; Tugg Putt; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; Race Taylor; Chuck Nolan; Bill Evans; Dan Zelinski; David Foster; Michael Hutchinson; Walter Egan; Bill McCuddy; Eppy; Joe Lynch; Linda Wnek; and ZIGGY!

Images on this page have been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Columbus Day? No thanks. Israel Day? Pass. September 11? Suddenly, attendance is a sacred obligation. Welcome to selective representation, City Hall style.

New York City has a mayor with an interesting interpretation of public service. Apparently, representing eight million people comes with an asterisk: some traditions are worth showing up for, while others can make do with a social media video and a carefully worded explanation.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s latest disappearing act came at the Columbus Day Parade, where generations of Italian Americans have gathered along Fifth Avenue to celebrate their heritage. The marching bands marched, the flags waved, the politicians smiled, and the mayor was conspicuous by his absence.

One can only imagine the scheduling conflict. Perhaps City Hall had an emergency meeting on the proper way to avoid a parade.

Mamdani’s feelings about Christopher Columbus are hardly a state secret. In 2020, he posted a photograph of himself making an obscene gesture toward a Columbus statue in Astoria, accompanied by the declaration, “Take it down.” A charming bit of statesmanship, particularly from someone who would eventually become the city’s chief representative.

Columbus is a controversial historical figure, and there are substantial reasons to challenge the sanitized version of his legacy. But Italian Americans did not spend generations building neighborhoods, businesses, churches, cultural institutions and political movements in New York simply to have their annual celebration reduced to a referendum on a 15th-century navigator. The parade is also about them. That distinction seems to have escaped the mayor.

Instead of appearing in person, Mamdani released a video celebrating Italian American Heritage Month, praising figures such as Fiorello La Guardia and Vito Marcantonio. In other words, he was perfectly happy to celebrate Italian-American history once he had selected which Italians were acceptable. How wonderfully convenient. Heritage, apparently, is best enjoyed à la carte.

This was not an isolated exercise in selective attendance. Mamdani also skipped the Israel Day Parade, another longstanding Fifth Avenue tradition. His criticism of the Israeli government is well established, and he is entitled to it. But New York’s Jewish community is not the Israeli cabinet, just as the Italian-American community is not Christopher Columbus.

A mayor ought to understand the difference between recognizing a community and endorsing every political or historical association attached to its celebration. Instead, the message increasingly resembles a municipal popularity contest. Some communities get the mayor. Others get the mayor’s explanation for why they didn’t.

Then came September 11.

When a petition opposing Mamdani’s attendance at the 25th anniversary memorial drew more than 100,000 signatures, the mayor suddenly discovered a principle worth defending. Despite objections from critics, including former Governor George Pataki and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, he attended, describing his responsibility to honor the victims and first responders as a sacred obligation. On that point, he was right.

A mayor should attend the September 11 memorial. The ceremony belongs to the city, not to a political faction, and no elected official should be excluded because of his religion. Anti-Muslim attacks directed at Mamdani were reprehensible and did nothing to strengthen legitimate criticism of his administration.

But here is where the mayor’s reasoning begins to resemble a Broadway farce, except nobody is laughing.

When citizens object to his presence at Ground Zero, attendance becomes an obligation of office. When he objects to the associations surrounding other communities’ celebrations, attendance becomes a matter of personal discretion. How does that work, exactly?

Does the mayoral oath come with a footnote explaining that civic duty is mandatory only when it aligns with the mayor’s convictions? Is there a secret City Hall chart separating traditions into categories marked Sacred Obligation, Political Inconvenience and Please Accept This Video Instead?

To be fair, Mamdani has attended other parades. No mayor can appear at every event in a city that seems capable of staging a procession for almost anything. But when the events being missed are politically sensitive ones, the public has every right to question the pattern.

That is the disturbing part. Not that a politician has opinions. Not that he questions Columbus or opposes the policies of Israel’s government. It is the apparent ease with which his personal political judgments become the filter through which communities receive recognition from the office of mayor.

New York is not a private club. City Hall is not an ideological guest list. The mayor is not the master of ceremonies for only those New Yorkers whose politics he finds agreeable. If he wants to govern a city this diverse, he must occasionally stand beside people with whom he disagrees. He can do so without surrendering his principles. That is not hypocrisy. That is leadership.

The hypocrisy begins when he demands that others respect the responsibilities of his office while treating those same responsibilities as negotiable when they become uncomfortable. There is a certain theatrical brilliance to it: the mayor who insists he must show up when people don’t want him there, yet cannot quite manage to show up when people do.

New York elected a mayor, not a cultural customs inspector. The job description does not read: Represent all New Yorkers, provided their traditions pass your personal approval process.

If Mamdani wants to be the mayor of the entire city, he should start behaving like it. Otherwise, perhaps City Hall should save everyone some confusion and put the fine print on the door.