Billy Crystal was a wonderful pest.

In what is perhaps the most charming opening of a Tony telecast, Billy Crystal kept stealing the show from Hugh Jackman, the real host of this year's American Theatre Wing Tony Awards® ceremony.

Crystal, who later in the evening won a Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event as a producer of his one-man show Billy Crystal 700 Sundays, took to the stage as the telecast began. Playing the host, he was on a comic roll when Jackman interrupted his standup with a call from his cell phone.

Crystal, who has frequently presided over the Oscars, declared that he, too, is heads-over-heels in love with Katie Holmes, and joked that all the musical numbers this year will be sung by Beyoncé "in French."

That's when Jackman interrupted Crystal with a phone call. "For a minute there, I thought this was Deep Throat," Crystal quipped, who added that by "Deep Throat" he was actually referring to Harvey Fierstein.

In retort, Fierstein, his face wrapped by a fuzzy Fiddler on the Roof beard, smirked. But with a smile.

Crystal kvetched and nagged and eventually handed the host baton to Jackman. His shtick turned out to be a seamless encounter in which Crystal went on to present a Tony Award to a visibly dazed and shocked Liev Schreiber, who won the Best Featured Actor in a Play nod for his performance in Glengarry Glen Ross.

Randy Gener is the senior editor of American Theatre magazine and the author of the plays, Love Seats for Virginia Woolf and What Remains of a Rembrandt Torn into Four Pieces, among others.

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The Tony Awards are presented by Tony Award Productions, a joint venture of the League of American Theatres and Producers and the American Theatre Wing.