Melvin "Mel" Kaminsky (born June 28, 1926), better known by his
stage name Mel Brooks, is an American
film director,
screenwriter,
composer,
lyricist,
comedian,
actor and
producer, best known as a creator of broad film
farces and comic
parodies. Brooks is a member of
the short list of entertainers with the distinction of having won an
Emmy, a
Grammy, an
Oscar and a
Tony award. Three of his films (
Blazing Saddles,
The Producers and
Young Frankenstein) ranked in the Top 20 on the
American Film Institute's list of the Top 100 comedy films of all-time.
Biography
Early life
Brooks was born
Melvin Kaminsky in
Brooklyn,
New York, the son of Kate (
née Brookman), a
garment worker, and Maximilian Kaminsky, a process server. Brooks and his family are
Jewish; his maternal grandparents immigrated from outside
Kiev in the
Russian Empire and his paternal family was from
Danzig in the
German Empire. His father died of kidney disease at age 34.
As a child, Brooks was a small and sickly boy. He was bullied and picked on by his peers. By taking on the comically aggressive job of
Tummler (master entertainer) in various Catskills resorts, he overcame his childhood of bullying and name calling.
Brooks was a corporal in the U.S. Army. The graduate of the Virginia Military Institute served in World War II, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and on occasion, defused landmines.
Early career
Brooks started out in show business as a stand-up comic, telling jokes and doing movie-star impressions. He found more rewarding work behind the scenes, becoming a comedy writer for television. He joined the hit comedy series
Your Show of Shows with
Sid Caesar and
Carl Reiner. Reiner, as creator of
The Dick Van Dyke Show, based
Morey Amsterdam's character Buddy Sorell on Brooks.
Brooks later moved into film, working as an actor, director, writer, and producer. Brooks's first film was
The Critic (1963), an animated satire of arty, esoteric cinema, conceived by Brooks and directed by
Ernest Pintoff. Brooks supplied running commentary as the baffled moviegoer trying to make sense of the obscure visuals. The short film won an Academy Award. With
Buck Henry, Brooks created the successful TV series
Get Smart, starring
Don Adams as a bumbling secret agent. This series added to Brooks's reputation as a clever satirist.
Brooks's first feature film,
The Producers, was a dark comedy about two theatrical partners who deliberately contrive the worst possible Broadway show. The film was so brazen in its satire (its big production number was "
Springtime for Hitler") that the major studios wouldn't touch it, nor would many exhibitors. Brooks finally found an independent distributor, which released it like an art film, as a specialized attraction. The film received an Oscar for
Best Original Screenplay. The film became a smash underground hit, first on the nationwide college circuit, then in revivals and on home video. Brooks later turned it into a musical, which became hugely successful on Broadway, receiving an unprecedented twelve Tony awards.
His two most financially successful films were released in 1974:
Blazing Saddles (co-written with
Richard Pryor,
Andrew Bergman, Norman Steinberg and Alan Uger), and
Young Frankenstein (co-written with
Gene Wilder). He followed these up with an audacious idea: the first feature-length silent comedy in four decades.
Silent Movie (co-written with
Ron Clark, 1976) featured Brooks in his first leading role, with
Dom DeLuise and
Marty Feldman as his sidekicks. The following year he released his
Hitchcock parody
High Anxiety (also written with Clark), which was the first movie produced by Brooks himself.
Brooks developed a repertory company of sorts for his film work: performers with three or more of Brooks's films (
The Producers, The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, History of the World: Part I, Spaceballs, Life Stinks, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It) to their credit include
Gene Wilder,
Dom DeLuise,
Madeline Kahn,
Harvey Korman,
Cloris Leachman,
Ron Carey and
Andréas Voutsinas.
Dom DeLuise appeared in six of Brooks's 12 films, the only person with more appearances being Brooks himself.
In 1975, at the height of his movie career, Brooks tried TV again with
When Things Were Rotten, a
Robin Hood parody that lasted only 13 episodes. Nearly twenty years later, in response to the 1991 hit film
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Brooks mounted another Robin Hood parody with
Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Brooks's film resurrected several pieces of dialog from his TV series, as well as from earlier Brooks films.
Later career
In 1980, Brooks became interested in producing the dramatic film
The Elephant Man (directed by
David Lynch). Knowing that anyone seeing a poster reading "Mel Brooks presents
The Elephant Man" would expect a comedy, he set up the company Brooksfilms. Brooksfilms has since produced a number of non-comedy films, including
David Cronenberg's
The Fly,
Frances, and
84 Charing Cross Road, starring
Anthony Hopkins and
Anne Bancroft, as well as comedies, including
Richard Benjamin's
My Favorite Year.
The 1980s saw Brooks produce and direct only two films, the first being
History of the World Part I in 1981, a tongue-in-cheek look at human culture from the
Dawn of Man to the
French Revolution. As part of the film's soundtrack, Brooks, then aged 55, recorded a rap entitled
"It's Good to Be the King", a parody of
Louis XVI and the
French Revolution; it was released as a single, and became a surprise US dance hit. His second movie release of the decade came in 1987 in the form of
Spaceballs, a parody of
science fiction, mainly
Star Wars. Both films featured him in multiple roles. He also starred in the 1983 remake of
To Be or Not to Be, which spawned a highly controversial single that featured as part of the film's soundtrack album (although not in the film itself) -
"To Be Or Not To Be (The Hitler Rap)". The song - satirising German society in the 1940s with Brooks playing Hitler - was banned from both radio airplay and television in Germany due to its deliberately ironic portrayal of the
Nazi involvement in
World War Two, but was an unlikely hit elsewhere, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1984 and #3 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report) that same year.
thumb|Brooks with Anne Bancroft in 1997
Brooks's most recent success has been a transfer of his film
The Producers to the
Broadway stage. Brooks also had a vocal role in the 2005 animated film
Robots. He is currently working on an
animated series sequel to
Spaceballs.
Spaceballs: The TV Series premiered on September 21, 2008 on
G4 TV.
Brooks is one of the few artists who have received an
Oscar,
Emmy,
Tony, and
Grammy. He was awarded his first Grammy award for Best Spoken Comedy Album in 1999 for his recording of
The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000 with Carl Reiner. His two other Grammys came in 2002 for Best Musical Show Album, for the soundtrack to
The Producers, and for Best Long Form Music Video for the DVD "Recording the Producers - A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks". He won his first of four Emmy awards in 1967 for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Variety for a
Sid Caesar special. He went on to win three consecutive Emmys in 1997, 1998, and 1999 for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role of Uncle Phil on
Mad About You. He won his three Tony awards in 2001 for his work on the musical,
The Producers. He won Tonys for Best Musical, Best Original Musical Score, and Best Book of a Musical. Additionally, he won a
Hugo Award and a
Nebula Award for
Young Frankenstein. In a 2005 poll to find
The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted #50 of the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. Three of Brooks's films are on the
American Film Institute's list of
funniest American films:
Blazing Saddles (#6),
The Producers (#11), and
Young Frankenstein (#13).
Brooks and his wife
Anne Bancroft acted together in
Silent Movie and
To Be or Not to Be, and Bancroft also had a bit part in the 1995 film
Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Years later, the Brookses appeared as themselves in the fourth season finale of
Curb Your Enthusiasm, spoofing the finale of
The Producers. It is reported that Bancroft encouraged Brooks (after an idea suggested by David Geffen) to take
The Producers to Broadway where it became an enormous success, as the show broke the Tony record with 12 wins, a record that had previously been held for 37 years by
Hello, Dolly! at 10 wins. Such success has translated to a big-screen version of the Broadway adaptation/remake with actors
Matthew Broderick and
Nathan Lane reprising their stage roles, in addition to new cast members
Uma Thurman and
Will Ferrell. As of early April 2006, Brooks had begun
composing the score to a Broadway
musical adaptation of Young Frankenstein, which he says is "perhaps the best movie [he] ever made." The world premiere was performed at Seattle's most historic theatre (originally built as a movie palace), The Paramount Theatre, between August 7, 2007, and September 1, 2007 after which it opened on Broadway at the
Hilton Theatre, New York, on October 11, 2007. It has since earned moderate to poor reviews from the critics.
TIME reports, "Mel Brooks is no longer the inspired amateur. Now he's a Broadway monster, repeating himself."
In interviews broadcast on WABC radio, Brooks has discussed with NYC radio personality
Mark Simone the possibilities of turning other works from his creative oeuvre (such as the movie
Blazing Saddles) into future musical productions. Specifically, in a conversation airing March 1, 2008, he and Simone speculated on what show tunes might be incorporated into a theatrical adaptation of the
Get Smart property.
Personal life
Brooks was married to Florence Baum from 1951 to 1961. Their marriage ended in divorce. Mel and Florence had three children, Stephanie, Nicky, and Eddie.
Brooks was married to the Academy Award winning actress
Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death from uterine cancer on June 6, 2005. They met on rehearsal for the
Perry Como Variety Show in 1961 and married three years later, August 5, at the
Manhattan Marriage Bureau. Their son,
Max Brooks, was born in 1972.
Work
Writer/director
Theatre
Other works
- New Faces of 1952 (Broadway) (1952) (writer) and "New Faces", the 1954 film version (writer)
- Get Smart (TV) (1965-1970) (co-creator, writer)
- The Electric Company (TV) (1971-1977) (voice of recurring little cartoon man who asks: "Who's the dummy writing this show?!")
- The Fly (1986) (uncredited producer)
- Svitati (AKA Screw Loose) (1999) (actor-Jake Gordon)
- Robots (2005) (voice of Bigweld)
See also
