BY BERNICE FOX
FORMER CO-HONORARY MAYOR BILLY CRYSTAL
Billy and Janice Crystal were co-honorary Palisades Mayors.
Former Pacific Palisades co-honorary mayor Billy Crystal is looking beyond the upcoming end of the Broadway run of his musical comedy, Mr. Saturday Night. The final Broadway performance will be September 4. The show opened last spring.
Crystal has been starring as the same character he played in his 1992 Mr. Saturday Night movie, Buddy Young Jr.: an outspoken comedian from the early years of television. Now, 40 years after hitting the top, Buddy tries to force his way back into the spotlight, while at the same time, tries to fix problems with his family.
A couple of months ago, Mr. Saturday Night received five Tony nominations, including Best Musical and Best Actor in a Musical for Crystal.
Summing up his time in Mr. Saturday Night, Crystal told the publication, Broadway World, “It has been a joyous experience to make my musical comedy debut at the age of 74, and I thank everyone involved.”
At the end of the show’s Broadway run, Crystal will begin pre-production on the AppleTV+ limited series, Before.
He’ll executive produce and star in the series. On board are two Academy Award-winners, writer Eric Roth and director Barry Levinson. In Before, Crystal plays Eli, a recently widowed child psychiatrist who encounters a troubled young boy.
NOTABLE RESIDENT BEN AFFLECK
If you were not invited to the July 17 wedding of Jennifer Lopez and Palisadian Ben Affleck, don’t feel bad. It was an intimate ceremony in Las Vegas.
In her newsletter the next afternoon, Lopez wrote “We flew to Vegas, stood in line for a license with four other couples, all making the same journey to the wedding capital of the world.
“We barely made it to the little white wedding chapel by midnight. They graciously stayed open late a few minutes, let us take pictures in a pink Cadillac convertible, evidently once used by the king himself (but if we wanted Elvis himself to show, that cost extra, and he was in bed).
“We read our own vows in the little chapel and gave one another the rings we’ll wear for the rest of our lives,” she wrote. “In the end it was the best possible wedding we could have imagined.”
And Lopez notes “it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient.”
This is Lopez’s fourth marriage. She and Affleck had been engaged 20 years ago in 2002, after meeting on the set of Gigli. But they called it off in 2004, the same year she married singer Marc Anthony, her third husband. That marriage lasted 10 years and produced twins, Max and Emme, now 14.
During that time, Affleck married Jennifer Garner in 2005, and they had three children: Violet, 16, Seraphina, 13, and Samuel, 10. They divorced in 2018.
Affleck and Lopez reunited after Lopez split in 2021 from retired baseball star, Alex Rodriguez, to whom she was engaged in 2019.
In the week since their wedding, Affleck and Lopez have been on their honeymoon in Paris, joined by some of their kids as they go shopping and check out museums.
When the newly-married couple returns to L.A., they might continue their search for a large, secure place to raise their blended family. If they still haven’t found one, well luckily, Pacific Palisades is filled with estates that could solve that problem.
TOM HANKS AS THE VILLIAN
A friend said, “You have to see Elvis, the kid (who plays Elvis Presley) should get the Oscar. No one will even top his performance this year.”
Elvis, starring Austin Butler, is a biographical musical film directed by Baz Luhrmann. Butler has received unanimous praise for his depiction of the King.
The film opens on Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) who is on his deathbed. He looks back to when he met Elvis and details their twisted relationship.
But Tom Hanks, whom we all know and love for heroic characters he generally portrays, plays Parker as a villain — and he’s barely recognizable. Maybe this Palisades resident was chosen because of his likeability and the possibility of making the character more sympathetic?
In an April 29 Facebook post, Elvis’ ex-wife Priscilla Presley wrote “For those curious about the new film ELVIS, Baz Luhrmann, the director, provided a private screening for me and Jerry Schilling at Warner studios recently. This story is about Elvis and Colonel Parker’s relationship. It is a true story told brilliantly and creatively that only Baz, in his unique artistic way, could have delivered.
“Austin Butler, who played Elvis, is outstanding. Halfway through the film Jerry and I looked at each other and said WOW!!! Bravo to him… he knew he had big shoes to fill. He was extremely nervous playing this part. I can only imagine.
“Tom Hanks was Col Parker in this film. What a character he was. There (were) two sides to Colonel, Jerry and I witnessed both. The story, as we all know, does not have a happy ending. But I think you will understand a little bit more of Elvis’ journey, penned by a director who put his heart and soul and many hours into this film.”
Thanks for the updates. It’s refreshing to see news about our neighbors instead of scandal rag blasts. Happy days to the subjects of the article and to their families, as well.