Crystal was born on March 14, 1947, in Long Beach, N.Y., and graduated in 1970 from New York University. After touring with an improvisational comedy group, he launched a career in solo stand-up comedy in 1975. He moved into television in 1977, playing television's first openly homosexual character in the comedy soap opera Soap, which lasted into 1981. In 1982 he hosted The Billy Crystal Comedy Hour, also on television. Crystal's films include Rabbit Test (1978); Running Scared (1986); Throw Momma from the Train (1987); When Harry Met Sally (1989); City Slickers (1991); Mr. Saturday Night (1992), which Crystal directed; and Analyze This (1999).