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I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday morning. For generations now, the Kennedy family has been a constant in American politics. From its late 19th century beginnings to the Camelot era of the 1960s, through today, the Kennedys have held positions of power and captured the imagination of the American people. Ethel Kennedy wasn't born into the family; she married Robert F. Kennedy in 1950, but she became a matriarch, giving birth to 11 children.
She died two years ago at age 96, the end of a remarkable life. Her daughter Carrie looks back on this morning with Rita Braver. Ethel Kennedy's marriage to Robert Kennedy ended with his assassination in 1968. But their love story continues to inspire. You talk about a song that Taylor Swift wrote when she saw a picture of your parents dancing.
Yes, she wrote "Starlight" because she was so touched by that photograph. Ahead on Sunday morning, Kerry Kennedy on her famous family. Laughter not only launched Billy Crystal into show business, it's also helped him heal from some tough times. After a very trying past two years, he's reckoning with tragic loss in a one-man show now on Broadway. He'll tell Tracy Smith all about it.
When Billy Crystal lost his home in the Pacific Palisades fire last year, he did what he always does in a crisis: pick himself up and make people laugh. I don't like heights. That's why I'm not very tall. How do you manage to find humor in these darkest of times? That's what I do.
Billy Crystal turning a personal hell into a hell of a show. Later on Sunday morning, he rejects the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. He believes Donald Trump is one of our nation's greatest presidents. He is Steve Bannon, the combative, controversial former Trump White House chief strategist. He's talking with our Ted Koppel.
Going to be MAGA in the room counting the votes because only MAGA can count fair. Steve Bannon is an unapologetic propagandist and provocateur. I am the leader of trying to get President Trump to run for a third term, but also a political realist determined to move America further to the right. Is the United States, in the final analysis, moving toward? All right, I'll say the word fascism.
Coming up on Sunday morning, Luke Burbank this morning meets music sensation Noah Kahn, the Vermont native who's selling out concerts around the world. Elizabeth Palmer visits with Julia Donaldson, the best-selling children's author of the beloved Gruffalo books. Faith Salley shows us how women's baseball is stepping up to the plate. Plaza story from Steve Hartman, and more on this Sunday morning for a holiday weekend, October eleventh, twenty twenty-six. We'll be right back.
We begin this morning with Rita Braver on the remarkable life of a Kennedy family matriarch, Ethel Kennedy. What words would you use to describe your mother? Extraordinary, chic, fun, funny, fully alive. Carrie Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy, says that most people don't know very much about her mom.
And it's a story of wonder and beauty and inspiration, if not of self-reflection, as Ethel Kennedy said in this 2012 documentary. Introspection, I hate it. She grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. The daughter of a self-made millionaire. My mother was such an extraordinary athlete.
Look at this picture of her jumping over a jump. In fact, she and her college roommate, whose name just happened to be Jean Kennedy, decided that their two families should meet for a ski vacation. Your mother developed a big crush on your father, only to learn he was dating her sister.
Well, yes. He unfortunately was looking in a different direction. Not for long. They were married in 1950, and this photo, now on the cover of Carrie Kennedy's loving memoir about her mom, inspired the Taylor Swift song Starlight. They had a true, extraordinary love story, but a real partnership.
Their first of eleven children was born in 1951. Kerry Kennedy is number seven. Your mother was pregnant, from my count, for ninety-nine months. Yes, for more than eight years, right? Yes, but my mother often would say, if she could do anything differently, she'd have more children.
And though Ethel Kennedy grew up in a family of Republicans, she was a Democrat through and through. This photo was taken the night John F. Kennedy was elected president. It's of my uncle Jack, daddy, mummy, the night of the returns. They were looking at the election returns.
Election returns. Yes, they were here at the family compound in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. This, of course, is my parents' house, where I grew up. And then, in back of it is President Kennedy's house, now belongs to my cousin Ted. And this really was the center for the Kennedy family, for my father Bobby, his brothers John, Ted, Joe, and his sisters, growing up.
By the time Bobby Kennedy became his brother's attorney general at age 35, much of the action switched to Hickory Hill in the Washington suburbs, where the children were included in all aspects of family life. That even meant going to the attorney general's office, where her father puts a young Kerry on the phone with one of his deputies during a civil rights crisis. Weren't they loud, Carrie? Yeah. Hi, Carrie.
Hi, Carrie. How you doin'? Hi, Carrie. Then on November 22nd, 1963, from Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.
It was like Daddy had lost both arms. It was six months of just blackness. My mother was the opposite. She gave him that space to be able to grieve, but she had all those children at home, and she was going to be there with us, driving the car pools, saying prayers every night. But by 1964, Robert F.
Kennedy would win the race for the U.S. Senate in New York. Just four years later, he would announce his run for the White House in opposition to President Lyndon Johnson's support for the Vietnam War. Did you ever ask your mother why, after? What had happened to your uncle Jack?
She was never afraid for your father, or was she? Yeah, fear was not part of the equation for her. Would have been for me, but it wasn't for her. Mr. Kennedy.
When Kerry Kennedy was eight years old, after her father won the California primary, Robert F. Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullet. Ethel Kennedy's heart was broken, and yet she was getting up the next day and forging ahead. That's how she lived her life. She was mighty.
She threw herself into raising her children, and she founded what's now known as the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center, dedicated to fighting oppression at home and around the world. But she also had her fair share of additional sorrows.
Well, she certainly—I mean, my brother Michael died. My brother David died from a drug overdose. And then there is the controversial topic of Ethel Kennedy's son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who not only endorsed Donald Trump for president, but is now a member of his cabinet. What was really most important to my mother and to my father and to all of us is our love.
I love Bobby with all my heart. I disagree with almost everything he says and does. My mother was like that. She had a comfort level at being on the other side of Bobby, but still being able to love him. You have called for your brother's resignation.
But still, you say you love him. Of course, I love him. But I don't think that somebody should be the Secretary of Health and Human Services who is is saying we shouldn't use vaccines. In two thousand and fourteen, President Obama honored Ethel Kennedy with the Medal of Freedom for her dedication to human rights. Ethel has been a force for change in her quiet, flashy.
Unflashy, unstoppable way. As her family will tell you, and they basically occupy this half of the room. You don't mess with Ethel. Ethel Kennedy died on October tenth, twenty twenty-four, at age ninety-six. There was so much loss, Rita.
So much loss in her life, and then she came out the other side. And with this extraordinary joy, all through the last years of her life, the thing she kept repeating was, "Aren't we lucky?" Her books are rhyming, rhythmic classics, beloved by children and adults around the world.
Now, as Elizabeth Palmer tells us, author Julia Donaldson is delighting readers once again. When I've got a pencil in my hand, it's like an electric current. My brain can send the words down my arm onto the page. Julia Donaldson's stories have been filling children's heads with wonder for decades. I sort of brainstorm in one notebook, and then all the best bits I copy into the next notebook.
At last, the mouse stirred and his eyes opened wide. The story, the story, the Gruffalo's cried. Donaldson has sold more than seventy-five million books worldwide, and more in the UK than any other author of this century. How did it change your life? I wouldn't say it's really changed my life, except you know, well, recently I was made a dame.
Dame Julia Donaldson didn't achieve literary success until she was in her late forties, a mom of three. She was writing songs for television when a publisher got in touch about this one. A squash and a squeeze. I very much thought of myself as a songwriter, and it was only when a squash and a squeeze was made into book, then I thought, yeah, of course, you know, I could do this.
So that was the beginning of it all. Was it ever? In 1999, Donaldson created the Gruffalo. A Gruffalo. What's a Gruffalo?
A cruffalo. Why didn't you know? The book about a monster outwitted by a clever mouse quickly became a modern classic and was adapted to film. Just walk behind me, and soon you'll see everyone is afraid of me. Rrrrrrrrrr.
These were my initial ideas. The Gruffalo himself was drawn into being by illustrator Axel Scheffler. Did you have an inkling that it was going to be? I had no idea at all. I thought it would sell a few thousand copies and be forgotten.
How wrong you were! I was completely wrong. Today, the Gruffalo is everywhere, and Scheffler, like Donaldson, seems bemused by it all. It's kind of odd to. See the Gruffalo everywhere in the world.
There's no escape. Of course, I'm very happy that he's got such a universal appeal. It seems to be really all over the world. Author and illustrator who regularly act out their stories as well. This is our local children's bookshop.
Joined us at the Alligator's Mouth Bookshop in London. Do you ever ponder what life would have been like if you'd never met? Maybe we'd have found other wonderful partnerships.
So you never know. Yes, yes. I don't think anybody goes into children's books to become rich or famous. That that was just a side effect.
So we just carry on with. Doing the next book, the latest book is Gruffalo Granny. It came out last month and is now the UK's best-selling book of the year across all genres. The Gruffalo said to his daughter one day, "Your Gruffalo Granny is coming to stay." Pull upon me face. It's dedicated to Malcolm Donaldson's late husband and creative confidant.
Oh yes, some ideas from something with Malcolm. It says ideas from Walk with Malcolm, aliens, blue and red, Romeo and Juliet. That did become the Smeds and the Smooths. Never, never play with a Smed. That's such a dreadful shade of red.
In the U.S., her bestseller is *Room on the Broom*. Another of the many brought to life on screen. Her books brim with wit and humor, but Donaldson's stories take children seriously. You're a great advocate for children reading. Why is it so important?
I just think it's one of life's great pleasures. It helps you become more empathetic. It fires your imagination.
So I just want all children to have that opportunity. Adult fiction gets so much attention. And yet, children's fiction sells a huge proportion. It's definitely an awful lot more than you'd think. You don't very often get a deep, proper critical review of a children's book.
I think it's big misjudgment of what people are interested in, because a big percentage of adults are parents. You know, another percentage are grandparents, another percentage are teachers.
So, yeah, big mistake. The song "Stick Season" brought singer-songwriter Noah Kahn from virtual anonymity to viral stardom almost overnight, and as Luke Burbank tells us, he's been on a hot streak ever since. This is just our home, like plain and simple. You just know where your home is, and this is it. Noah Khan is right where he always thought he'd be.
My high school prediction was most likely to be a regionally known musician, so I think it was supposed to be an insult. But I'm happy to have found. I'm happy to have found my niche. He's somewhere in the woods of Vermont, talking about his favorite place. I think people think about Vermont, and they think.
Maple syrup, Bernie Sanders, flannel T-shirts, Subaru Outbacks, and they're not wrong, but but there's so much more here, and I think it's important to tell those stories too. It's also the place where, back in 2020, Khan posted a partial song on TikTok, not expecting much. I had deleted many TikToks before. Like I'd put it on TikTok, and then I'd look like a couple hours later, and if it wasn't doing well, I would get insecure and delete it. Luckily.
He left this one up because the next morning things started to change. All these artists and different TikTok creators started covering it, and it felt like, whoa, more people know me than I thought. And it was kind of one of those moments where I was like, maybe I do have like a career ahead of me. Did he ever? The song "Stick Season" and the 2022 album of the same name propelled the 29-year-old from regionally known musician to multi-platinum, two-time Grammy-nominated singer on a run of sold-out stadium shows.
Legions of fans see themselves in his lyrics. Specifics from Khan's life that feel universal: friendships lost, messy divorces, bouts of depression and anxiety. People here are here because they want that intimate feel, and they kind of go into their own worlds at these shows. And I think they kind of feel like they're right up there with us. And so there's not a thousand background dancers or tons of fireworks and pyro.
It's it's like a show that feels big but small at the same time. Even with his breakout success, there were no guarantees Khan's follow-up record would be a hit.
Something that weighed on him the whole time. I kind of was just waiting for the other shoe to fall, and waiting for it to be over, and and wondering how I was going to ever maintain it. And so I went into the. The process of writing my fourth album with all this expectation on myself, and so I was approaching it from like the least artistic, the least healthy way. And the only solution for me really was to step away from from songwriting and to and to wait and to trust that what I've loved to do my entire life would return to me in its purest form, and it did.
It took nearly four years. But the Great Divide, released in April, has actually surpassed Stick Season, with every song debuting on the Billboard Hot 100. Of course, as anyone who's battled with their mental health can tell you, outward success does very little to address what's going on inside a busy head, as Con puts it. I'm confronted with the way I look all the time, like even here, giant screens, and like I have a hard time not peeking over and being like, man, I hate that angle. Or, but I also find that it's allowed me to talk about it to a bigger group of people, and and the response to it has been really beautiful, and and it's made me feel more comfortable in my own skin in a lot of ways too.
I've always just really hated the way I looked. I'm on big breasts. Hasn't been something that I've really spoken much about. A Netflix documentary that coincided with the release of the album put some of Khan's mental health struggles on full display. And I think I guess that's what Barnum and Bailey is supposed to be like—not having a correct image of who you are.
I'll be like, "Mom, I can't believe like how fat and gross I look," and she'll be like, "What are you talking about?" Or Brenna, like, "I look... Ooh, that's the worst timing ever for that to happen." You know, growing up. In my family, when we always had conversations about mental health alongside laughs and jokes, like it all kind of coalesced, and it never felt like something that we had to be super serious or dark about. A turning point for Khan was getting caught with marijuana as a teenager and being sent to court-ordered counseling, an experience he says that changed his life. And she was asking about risk symptoms and mental health symptoms, and I remember I checked off like every box, and the lady goes, "Oh, so I'll put you in the busy head category." And I remember when she said that, it just spoke to this feeling of mine that that's what I was.
I was a busy head. It wasn't. It's not a negative. It's not a, you know, scarlet letter. It's it's you just have a lot going on upstairs.
Busyhead also inspired the name of the nonprofit confounded in 2023 to get mental health help to those who might not otherwise be able to afford it. There's no no place in the world I'd rather be tonight.
So thank you guys so much. And it was back home last month at an intimate fundraiser that he announced the organization has raised over thirteen million dollars so far to support the mission. With all of his success, Khan's next stadium tour is already selling out. What does an artist who's mostly mined his trauma for his music to do?
Well, Noah Kahn, regionally famous musician whose region now spans the entire world, says he's going to try something new. There's been so much joy in my life, and I want to access that joy more because I think I deserve it, and I think the fans will still listen to it. I'm scared to trust myself to be content because it's just not a feeling I've ever really lived with, but I'd love to try, and it's my intention is to try, and so we'll see. Have a great night. Midterm elections are just over three weeks away, with control of the House and Senate very much up for grabs.
One person with a distinct rooting interest on the right is former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Senior contributor Ted Koppel joined Bannon in his war room. There he was on the cover of Time magazine, February 2017. Steve Bannon, chief White House strategist, they called him the great manipulator. He threatened at times to overshadow the president himself.
Not the best career move. And for a while, he visibly fell out of favor. I don't talk to him. I don't talk. I don't talk to him.
That's just a misnomer. To this day, though, he remains a passionate Trump supporter. When Trump decides to leave the stage actively, he can't be replaced, like Washington or Lincoln. These are people that they named the age of. I can't believe that you're mentioning Trump.
In the same breath as Washington and Lincoln. I am. I think he's at that line. I hear you. I know you're doing it.
Because I think General Washington was there at the birth of the nation. Yeah. Lincoln was the rebirth of the nation, and I absolutely believe, and I think ninety-nine percent of MAGA believes that Trump was there for the salvation of the nation. They're not going to shut up Bannon, and they're certainly not going to shut up MAGA. Bannon is a man of unwavering commitment.
He did four months. In prison for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about his role in the events leading up to January 6. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. War room. Here's your host, Stephen K.
Van. He's set up an influential podcast, The War Room. Gonna be MAGA in the room counting the votes because only MAGA can count fair. Two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening. Demand a moratorium on all immigration.
You have a taste for the right wing. Definitely, it's no doubt. I am right wing. I'm not conservative. I'm a right winger and proud of it.
Trump did not budge. He stood in the breach. The great manipulator is, by most accounts, once again in regular and amicable communication with the president. But Bannon has no illusions. If Democrats gain control of the House in a couple of weeks, the age of mega is in jeopardy.
We lose the House. It's going to turn the White House to Fort Apache. I think you'll see Bobby Kennedy impeached. I think you see Pete Hegseth impeached. I think you see subpoenas flying every day.
They will look to destroy President Trump and will be bogged down for two years. That sounds like your argument for you got to vote Republican this year. It's pretty compelling, I think.
Well, it's it's compelling to you. It may not be so compelling to the majority of American voters. But you don't need the majority. Here's my point on the midterm. Remember, midterm.
Elections are always driven by base getting out, and the base's ability to get more of their low propensity voters out. All Bushes and Bush-related people, you suck. Bannon has few, if any, illusions about the agenda of old-line Republicans. They are all set for getting beyond Trump. You're there.
You're almost there. If you're not beyond Trumpism, what's your future?
Well, I just first off, President Trump. I'm the. I would say the leader of trying to get President Trump to run for a third term. It appears that he's not interested, or it just won't happen. The idea of a third term for Trump.
It's against the Constitution. Oh, I think you could drive a truck through that amendment. Really? Yes, I talked to constitutional lawyers, and there were, I think, a number of different alternatives. Would it be contested?
Yeah, be contested because everything the president does is contested in the courts. The president is also confronting the same nemesis as his predecessor, old age. He's eighty years old. His superpower is his energy. Look.
I'm in my eighties. You lose a step or two. You're not as quick as you once were. The president quite seemed pretty quick. The president quite clearly.
Has lost his temper too. Oh, I don't agree with that. Oh, absolutely. Why do you say that? There's no.
He's working 20 hours a day. There is no question that he's able to keep going. That he keeps moving. His non-speeches are just rambling drivel. I would not call him drivel.
President Trump has been known to go off script. They can take out a city. Let him take. Let it. Let him take out Los Angeles.
Let him take out San Diego. Trump has lost his fastball. He's not as quick as he used to be. Why do you say that? I see what he looks like.
I don't think Americans have ever been quite as embarrassed as they have been by Donald Trump. Ted, if you're part of the media elite, if you're part of the East Coast elite, if you're certainly part of the media, if you're if you're Atlanticist, what President Trump has done, yes, you're not going to like it, and probably you're going to hate it. And I understand this war. Is a is a huge issue, but I think working class Americans are not embarrassed. They are supportive of President Trump and how he presents the United States.
I think Americans are very uncomfortable with this war in Iran. I think they are saying, "Why the hell did we get into that in the first place?" We were in better shape before the war than we are right now. Let's bifurcate the war. If you look at the first part, the 12-day war and President Trump, the total obliteration of their nuclear program. Except it isn't totally obliterated.
We know that. I believe it's obliterated enough. What we're doing with tearing down their economy, the economic warfare of Scott Bessent. Given what he's doing with their currency, given the blockade on the oil. Interviewing Steve Bannon still offers the occasional surprise.
Pound for pound, as far as the number of deaths, yes, we have caused tremendous terror all around the world. If the Democratic Socialists sometimes offer positions that make more traditional Democratic candidates wince, count on Steve Bannon to find hidden advantage for Republicans, while seeming to praise the opposition. These people are very focused.
Some of the candidates may say way outside the mainstream, but they have a ground game that people have to understand that they have dedicated people, and they're going to turn out their vote. Bannon reminded me that he got into politics making films for the Tea Party. People had to decide what kind of country we were going to be, where we were going to go as a nation, what our future was all about. And what values we hold. I had a very particular take on it—very populist, very nationalistic.
Critics came and said, "Hey, this is fascist filmmaking." And I said, "Look, Leni Riefenstahl was one of the most powerful filmmakers ever." Indeed, she was. Leni Riefenstahl made the Nazis look mythical. Her coverage of military parades and the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Has influenced filmmakers for decades. Among them, Steve Bannon.
What would Lenny Reifenthal do? How would Lenny cut that scene? But most of all, she is known as Hitler's image maker. She was amoral, and she was a filmmaker for the Nazis. But her films were very powerful.
And what I was trying to do is to try to recreate the power of those films to make sure that people, particularly the little guy, Understood that they could they could have a voice. You are part of a worldwide movement that is bigger than France, bigger than Italy, bigger than Hungary, bigger than all of it. Over the past nine years, Steve Bannon has cultivated ties with far right movements across Europe. Including Germany's fiercely anti-immigration party, the AfD, Alternative for Deutschland, is in town. The politicians who are coming on your show, yeah, tonight, Alternative for Deutschland, Alternative for Deutschland.
We're very close to those folks. Let's say for country. Just do reasonable stuff. Alternative for Deutschland is now here to teach us. They went to ground, and what they did is they went door to door, and they convinced people with no campaign money that our way, our policies to reindustrialize Germany, stop this mass immigration, remigration, are policies you should vote for.
I think that we can learn a lot from them. Is the United States, in the final analysis, moving toward? All right, I'll say the word fascism. It's not fascism. It's actually more inclusionary.
It's more entrepreneurial. It's not fascism at all. Remember, if you go back, we win at the ballot box. The MAGA movement. Has only lost the Pelosi election of eighteen.
The core belief of the MAGA movement is we won the twenty twenty election. But you didn't. That's not true. We did. You did.
That's just not true, Steve. It's not. It's not. Hold on a second. It's not true.
I respect you. You're a brilliant guy. But how many court cases were there? Sixteen.
Some are court cases. We can go debate this another time. But we didn't. We didn't have standing. We never even got into court.
You lost every case. Bannon's technically correct. They didn't have standing; they couldn't find a judge who thought they had a significant case worth hearing.
So for six years, they've just kept saying the same thing over and over. If you had to push all the chips into the center of the table right now, which way is it going to turn out? I would push all our chips in the middle of the table and say, "Guys, there's no retreat and there's no substitute for victory. Let's let's fight like hell." That's a frightening prospect, though, isn't it? Because what you're saying is, we can't afford to lose.
Oh, we can't afford to lose. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I mean, if Steve Bannon says we can't afford to lose. That doesn't just mean that all the chips are on the table. It means we got to do whatever it takes to win this fight.
Exactly.
Well said. All right.
So be it. Steve Hartman has the tale of one woman's mission. To bring lost dogs home. Christine Quoth is a hunter of sorts, often going deep into the woods around Richmond, Virginia, to track and trap family members. When someone loses their dog, that's their child, and that's why over the last few years, Christine has captured dozens of lost dogs.
She's part of a growing national network of lost pet recovery specialists who offer this service often for free. It's about being kind to other people and doing what you wish people would do for you. Her most recent case was a desperate search for two golden doodles, Bailey and Toby. They belonged to 66-year-old Annie Olup. Annie lost her husband a couple years ago, and caring for those dogs had become her purpose, until a few weeks ago, when she got in a bad car accident.
I thought I'm going to go back to this house, and it's just going to feel so empty. Annie was driving in a heavy rain when she hit a guardrail, flipped her car, and almost died. Her dogs were also in the car. They survived, but they were missing. Yeah, dogs typically are going to just run away as quick as possible from the commotion and look for quietness.
Christine used drones and trail cameras to narrow the search, then set traps, changed the food twice a day, and agreed to stay on the case indefinitely. And all this, in addition to her day job in software development.
So you're constantly checking cameras. You're sleeping in your car. Yes. This is bordering on obsession. Absolutely.
Again, the joy of seeing them be reunited is ultimately what what makes us keep going. In the end, it took ten days to catch Toby. Sixteen days to catch Bailey. Put glasses on, and no time at all for the tears to flow. Once Annie saw her babies were back, oh my gosh, my precious, yes, oh.
The three are now home together, thanks to that stranger who believes it takes a village to raise a child, even the furry ones. Boy, you're so sweet, boy. Reba High, Julie got married yesterday to her partner. That's what they call them. They call them partners.
No, Tonto was a faithful companion. Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays was a smash when it debuted on Broadway back in 2004, ultimately winning him a Tony Award.
Now he's back with a new one-man show about life, loss, and the healing power of laughter. He talks about it with our Tracy Smith. All right, all right. I'm not really dressed for this. Is this my excuse before we start?
If Billy Crystal is one of the kings of comedy, his family home in LA's Pacific Palisades neighborhood was definitely his castle. We were invited there a few times for interviews, and I'd usually end up getting schooled on his backyard basketball court. See, you shot me. You didn't see the basket. It went in, folks.
Jane, I vouched for that. I know what that house meant to you. I mean, that was a magical place. Yeah, it kept me young. That place.
It was his family's forever home, but things don't always last forever. Oh. That's what we like—nothing but net. We just arrived here in what is left of downtown Pacific Palisades. In January 2025, a massive wind-driven inferno tore through the Crystal's Pacific Palisades neighborhood, devouring more than 5,000 homes, including theirs.
The fire took everything. But in the smoldering ruins of what was once their family home, Billy Crystal and his wife Janis found inspiration. This is a rehearsal for the new one-person show 860. Crystal is taking the story of his home and his life to Broadway, talking about what he lost and what he learned. And title and Gill.
And applause! Applause! Applause! Applause! Applause!
Applause! Janice, the planes are coming quicker now, and they're making water drops. I'm recording everything. If you want to see, oh God, what a morning! Helicopters and sirens woke us up to the news that there was a big brush fire in the highlands.
He describes the disaster moment by moment, and it's a harrowing tale.
Okay, but he's still Billy Crystal.
Now Janice is the more practical of the two of us. She's thinking about medicines and prescriptions. I'm thinking about that half a veal Parmesan sandwich in the refrigerator. Eight sixty opens October. October twenty-first.
It's now in previews. I have a big attachment to this theater. Billy wants the audience to feel like they're really inside his house, so the eight-sixty set is an exact replica of his home office, with everything just as it was. Yes, we were fortunate to have this and have that, but that doesn't take away the hurt. It doesn't take away the loss.
Did anything here survive? No. Or nothing. But there are some things that no fire could ever touch. We met with a real estate agent who drove us up to her only listing.
It was high up on a hillside, hanging over a canyon, held up by some stilts. Is that not a perfect place for kids? The memories are all intact and funny as ever. I don't like heights. That's why I'm not very tall.
The name of the show, 860, is actually the street address of the house he lost. Truth is, Krista wasn't sure what to call it until his dear friend Rob Reiner weighed in. He said, "What are you going to call it?" I had these other titles, and the third one was 860. He went, "That's the one. I love that.
I like that." So Rob helped you choose the title. Yeah. And then, in a year that was already traumatic beyond belief, the unimaginable happened. In December 2025, Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle were killed in their home. For Crystal, it's all still hard to comprehend.
Can you even process the loss of Rob and Michelle today? I um no. Um, it's too big. It's too. It's so insane.
Because we were together the night before. We said goodbye like late that night, ten thirty something. Party we were at together for the holidays, and then what? You know, and then you know. But Billy Crystal has found a way to process his grief, and maybe ours too.
Sharing stories and laughter. After about ten minutes of where are you from? There's a whistle in the wings. I looked over, and there's a promoter going. And I went, no.
How do you manage to find humor in these darkest of times? That's what I do. You have to, man. You gotta. You gotta.
It's it's a healer. It's it always has been that way. You know when we say when life gets tough, all you can do is laugh. Sunday number two, my circumcision. This I took personal.
Twenty-two years ago, Billy Crystal did another one-man show, "Seven Hundred Sundays," named for the approximately seven hundred Sundays he had with his father before he died. It was a major hit and a ticket to a Tony Award. And for Crystal, it was a cathartic experience. You said that "Seven Hundred Sundays" healed you. Do you think eight hundred and sixty?
It already has. It already has. Yeah. In what way? Of course, I'm doing it, and I've been doing it.
If I didn't get to perform it, even, I'm okay. I've absorbed the biggest pains that people can go through, the loss of home, dearest of friends, and I'm okay. Still, he says the body blows of 2025 have changed his outlook a bit. In 700 Sundays, you had conversations with God. Have you been talking to God over these past couple of years?
No, because I I don't trust him. Are you serious? Yeah. Too many bad things have happened. The earth is in bad shape.
This is a weird, scary time.
So, no, not anymore.
So many laughs, so many good times. God, we love that house. Eight sixty is a one man show, but Krista leaned on some Broadway heavyweights to bring it all to life. That's right. That's what's going to be great.
Director Scott Ellis and legendary composer Mark Shaiman. What is it like to see him try to find the humor in this? Because even in the little bit that we saw, there are laughs. He can't help but find the humor. I mean, all of us.
I mean, we laugh at the most terrible, horrible things, but we just laugh. Yeah, that's just. Who Billy is, and that's why he is who he is. It's an incredible story, you know. But it is family.
It is that's the thing. That is the the core of it. Is how do you move forward? You move forward with friends, and you move forward with family, and that's what you want and need. And he's lucky to have it.
Not a lot of people do. The show is in a limited run in New York, just until January. After that, Billy says he hopes to bring it to the city where it all happened, Los Angeles. The house might be gone, but the heart that built it is still there, strong as ever. I think about what you've been through.
You feel like you can handle anything at this point? Yeah, I'm 78 now, and I feel really good, and I'm optimistic for what life is going to bring. If we've gotten through this in the way that we've gotten through it, we're doing okay. Are you crying? No.
Are you crying? Are you crying? There's no crying in baseball. Why don't you leave her alone, Jimmy? Oh, you zip it, Doris.
Back in 1992, A League of Their Own was a hit, centering on a women's professional baseball league that began during World War II.
Some 80 years later, female pros are taking the field once again. To which our Faith Sayle says, "Batter up!" Kelsey Whitmore absolutely crushed, and that's home run. I knew I was going to play professional baseball one day. I did not know how I was going to make it happen. I didn't know when it was going to happen, but I had it in my heart.
Growing up, Kelsey Whitmore dreamed of baseball glory, but with no professional league for women and few teams for girls, her options were limited. Almost every team I played on, I was the only girl. How do you feel when people ask you why don't you just play softball? The obvious answer is I don't want to. It's just like telling a tennis player why don't you play ping pong?
It is gone. Kelsey Whitmore grand slam. No one's asking Whitmore to play ping pong anymore. When the new Women's Pro Baseball League debuted in August, she was the number one draft pick. There's still moments where I'm like, is this really happening right now?
Like, wow, we're actually here. That all-American pastime, baseball.
Okay, gals, play ball. Women's pro baseball has been largely inactive since the pioneering All-American Girls Professional Baseball League folded 72 years ago. And a nicely bruised leg. But Commissioner Justine Siegel says the time is ripe for women to once again have a league of their own. We are riding the wave of women's professional sports, and so I think the moment is right now for us to get a chance to launch.
The league is starting small. Four teams played in a seven-week season that ended last month. On the ground, over to short, over to first, and they've done it. When the Los Angeles Queens were crowned as champions, salaries are modest, around $6,300 per player per season, and all the games were played at this stadium in Springfield, Illinois. We know we're a little out of the way for many, but next year, as we expand, you'll get to see us in more cities.
What I think the market wants more than anything in professional sport now is women's sport. Canadian businessman Keith Stein is the league's CEO. He believes if he builds it, they will come. When I embarked on this, so many people told me women don't want to play baseball, and they can't play baseball at the elite level, and the fans don't want to watch it. We've proven them wrong.
But this scrappy league has hit some early speed bumps. Stein removed a league board member after she accused him of withholding financial documents, a charge he says is motivated by a personal grievance. There was this unique rendition of the national anthem on opening day. And for all the offensive power on display, defensive play has been inconsistent. Deep into center, off the glove, calling everyone off, but it's gonna fall in.
Have you noticed that? And what do you make of it? You know there are errors, and part of that is just because it's the first time that women have gotten a chance to play day to day, and so there are some nerves, but you can see them settling down. On the weeknights we visited, there were swaths of empty seats, but the bleachers were not lacking for enthusiastic fans. As in softball, games are seven innings.
Infield dimensions are the same as the MLB, while the outfield fence is about 50 feet closer to home plate. Women's baseball is inherently different from men's baseball because of biological differences. We're not hitting these monster home runs or throwing 100 miles an hour, but we're crafty. Maggie Fox is a catcher for the LA Queens. Do you all want to be thought of as female baseball players or just baseball players?
When we were younger and we were all playing with the boys, we all wanted to be thought of just as baseball players. But I think because we have a league that is now ours, we want to be women's professional baseball players.
So now, when someone says, "Hey, you know, you don't have a future in baseball because you're a girl," now that girl knows, "Yes, I do. This could be me one day. I could be Kelsey Whitmore." Whitmore says the Women's Pro Baseball League offers something else just as important—a sense of belonging. This is our place. This is our space.
This is our diamond. Like this is meant for us, and it's been meant for us all along. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. On Paramount Plus, our hits hit harder.
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This is the start of one. Tulsa King. You can't get rid of me. And hit thrillers like Dexter Resurrection. I've been killing killers for half my life.
And the final season of Yellowjackets. You have no idea what we went through out there. Catch every killer twist now streaming on Paramount Plus.
