DATE: Sunday, May 11, 1997                  TAG: 9705090078

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  138 lines

WILLIAMS AND CRYSTAL: TOGETHER AGAIN FOR FIRST TIME

ROBIN WILLIAMS and Billy Crystal together for the first time above the title.

They've been friends for 20 years, appeared at comedy clubs on the same stage, and, with Whoopi Goldberg, have hosted the ``Comic Relief'' telethons for seven years. But until now, they've never shared top billing (their cameo appearances in ``Hamlet'' were in separate scenes).

``It would be a lie to say we aren't competitive,'' Williams said as his childlike clown's face grimaced with thought, ``but we don't think in those terms. We know each other so well that we play off each other instantly.''

The teaming of two of this generation's most revered clowns comes in ``Father's Day,'' the latest Hollywood remake of a French movie. As ``Les Comperes,'' it was a hit on the art-film circuit. The plot concerns two vastly different men who go in search of a teen-age boy they both think may be their son.

``Robin and I had been looking for 10 years for a vehicle for the two of us,'' Crystal said. ``We even tried writing a script from scratch. Then, we heard about this French film. It was perfect. A great story that would easily lend itself to American re-interpretation.''

Crystal plays a successful lawyer who doesn't believe it when Nastassja Kinski, who plays a girlfriend from 17 years ago, tells him he is the father of her missing son. Williams plays a ragamuffin failure who cries a lot and thinks of suicide. He, also, is told he is the father of the missing teen.

``I play Robin's father,'' Crystal laughed. ``We decided to play it that way. I'm the Oliver Hardy character. I get to look into the camera and say, over and over, `Do you believe what I have to put up with?' I studied all the great reactionary comics - Jack Benny, Dean Martin, all of them. I think Dean Martin was wonderful. His reactions created the laughs.''

Talk to them, and you'll find both similarities and contrasts. The bond, though, is that they both are veteran clowns, but without the exaggerated insecurities that usually go with the territory. At least, the vulnerabilities don't show on the surface.

``What's funny?'' Williams screws up his pixie face and ponders what he clearly thinks is a silly question. ``Baggy pants! Baggy pants are funny. But who can write a rule book on it? Lenny Bruce used to say that it was the `Love Me' syndrome. Be funny or you won't get rewards.''

Crystal and Williams met at a Comedy Club in San Francisco in 1977.

``He was a wild man,'' Crystal remembered. ``Everyone just sat back and screamed with laughter at him. Then, I was in an improv class with him. The situation was that a husband was supposed to come home and catch his wife in bed with another man. Melissa Manchester played the woman and Robin was the husband. I remember Lily Tomlin was in that class. And Steve Martin. And Martin Mull. Melissa was there to improve her stage presence. She didn't want to give up singing. But I've known Robin since then. And, yeah, we're best friends.''

Both are from well-to-do families. Crystal, a native of Long Island, N.Y., grew up surrounded by music. His family owned and operated the Commodore record label.

``My father died when I was 15,'' he said. ``The one thing I remember is that my father kept telling me to `Be a man.' He would always say `When the going gets tough, act like a man.' I wasn't sure what he meant, but I've tried. He was from the generation that would say that.''

Williams grew up in the San Francisco area and was the son of a high-ranking executive with Lincoln-Mercury.

``My father was seldom at home,'' he remembered. ``He'd bring me expensive toys, but I didn't see that much of him. He had a very dry sense of humor. I got my humor, I guess, from my mother, who was a Christian Scientist. My father always called the Christian Scientists the Smilies. I was, I guess, like a child would be if Neil Simon and Tennessee Williams were his parents.''

Williams studied political science at Claremont College and theater at Marin College before going seriously into theater at the Juilliard School in New York. Crystal, who worked as a stand-up comic before college, got a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from New York University.

One of the running jokes in ``Father's Day'' is a reference to how much people hate mimes.

Williams has personal experience in that field. ``I was a mime on the street outside the Metropolitan Museum on weekdays. The worst people were rich ladies. They'd hit me with their Gucci bags.''

Williams recalls that on a good day ``I'd make $40 - in nickels and quarters - left in the hat I passed around.''

Today, his salary is considerably more. The budget for ``Father's Day,'' directed by Ivan Reitman, is a whopping $60 million, even though it has no special effects or chase scenes. The major part of the expense is salary for the two stars.

Both comics have their share of awards. Crystal has won five Emmy Awards, six American Comedy Awards and Seven Cable Ace Awards.

Williams has won four Grammy Awards and has received three Oscar nominations (``Good Morning, Vietnam,'' ``Dead Poet's Society'' and ``The Fisher King'').

Entertainment Weekly magazine just named him ``the funniest person in the world.'' He throws his hands up in exasperation. ``Why don't they hang a sign on my back saying `Kick Me'?'' he said. ``It's the perfect target, having that title. It's like wearing asbestos underwear. It's a strange sensation.''

Crystal is just coming off successfully hosting the Academy Awards telecast. ``It's scary,'' he said. ``I mean, you can't escape the fact that something like a billion people watch that show, and that it is broadcast all over the world. The real trauma was in choosing an opening. Nothing would be as big as it's been done before. Finally, we settled on showing that film and having me enter through the screen. No one saw the film until an hour or so before we went on the air. It was carefully guarded. I was really nervous about it. It was on film. It couldn't be changed. I was relieved when the guys in the orchestra laughed. I always play to the guys in the orchestra. If you can make them laugh, anyone will laugh.''

Williams counters, ``I could never do the Oscar show. I'd do the wrong thing. I'm just too manic, I guess, for a formal event. Gregory Peck was standing backstage the first time I made a little appearance on the Oscar show and he said, `Boy, don't go out there and scratch your crotch.' I think he was really concerned.''

Both actors feel their own experience as real-life parents helped them play would-be fathers in the new film. Williams has three children, and Crystal has two daughters (ages 19 and 24).

``I have Cody, Zelda and Zachary,'' Williams said. ``My son, Zachary, age 14, shaved his head the other day,'' Williams said. ``It's not a Telly Savalas cut, but pretty close. The question of a tattoo came up the other day too. And the possibility of piercing various things. I told him that in 15 years, these people would look like they are shredded. These things come up, but he's still the same sweet kid.''

Williams said that Cody, his youngest, ``thinks I'm really funny. He's in the `knock, knock' jokes right now and they go on forever.''

Crystal's two daughters are in show business. One is directing an Off-Broadway show. The other, he says, ``has a kind of Goldie Hawn quality'' and wants to be an actress. ``I've very proud of them both.''

As for their own upcoming Father's Day, Crystal says ``I keep hinting at things, but they seldom hear me. For example, I say `Isn't that a great baseball, autographed by Babe Ruth' but they don't hear me. The greatest thing they did, once, for Father's Day, was when they prepared a photo album of the family through a few years.''

Williams comically suggests that ``I will say `Come children, worship me, bring me gifts.' But, really, the best thing is that they make things. I'm not sure what they are, but they are things. One, I thought, was a bowl, but it looked more like a flying saucer. It is a collector's item.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

[Funnymen Robin Williams, left, and Billy Crystal...]

Photo by BRUCE McBROOM

Billy Crystal says his experience as a parent helped him prepare for

his role in ``Father's Day.'' KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW BIOGRAPHY

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