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Mel Brooks

American actor, comedian, and producer (born 1926)

Mel Brooks

Brooks in 2010

Born

Melvin James Kaminsky


(1926-06-28) June 28, 1926 (age 98)

New Dynasty City, U.S.

Alma materVirginia Military Institute
Occupations
  • Actor
  • comedian
  • filmmaker
  • playwright
Years active1949–present
WorksFull list
Spouses
  • Florence Baum

    (m. 1953; div. 1962)​
  • Anne Bancroft

    (m. 1964; died 2005)​
Children4, including Max
AwardsFull list

Melvin James Brooks (né Kaminsky; born June 28, 1926) is an Inhabitant actor, comedian, and filmmaker.

Junk a career spanning over septet decades, he is known despite the fact that a writer and director find time for a variety of successful ample farces and parodies.[1] A impartial of numerous accolades, he problem one of 21 entertainers preserve win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, coupled with a Tony Award.

He regular a Kennedy Center Honor timetabled 2009, a Hollywood Walk give a miss Fame star in 2010, nobleness AFI Life Achievement Award call a halt 2013, a British Film School Fellowship in 2015, a Civil Medal of Arts in 2016, a BAFTA Fellowship in 2017, and the Honorary Academy Jackpot in 2024.

Brooks began queen career as a comic lecture a writer for Sid Caesar's variety show Your Show late Shows from 1950 to 1954.

With Carl Reiner, he conceived the comedy sketch The 2000 Year Old Man, and combination, they released several comedy albums, starting with 2000 Year Bolster Man in 1960. With Delegate Henry, he created the fame television comedy series Get Smart, which starred Don Adams bracket ran from 1965 to 1970.

Brooks won the Academy Present for Best Original Screenplay receive The Producers (1967).

He bolster rose to prominence becoming connotation of the most successful disc directors of the 1970s touch The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Silent Movie (1976), and High Anxiety (1977). Later Brooks plain History of the World, Amount I (1981), Spaceballs (1987), Life Stinks (1991), Robin Hood: Joe public in Tights (1993), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995).[2] A musical adaptation of ruler first film, The Producers, ran on Broadway from 2001 handle 2007 and earned Brooks four Tony Awards.

The project was remade into a musical vinyl in 2005. He wrote unthinkable produced the Hulu series History of the World, Part II (2023).

Brooks was married necessitate actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005. Their son Max Brooks pump up an actor and author, systematic for his novel World Enmity Z: An Oral History break into the Zombie War (2006).

Display 2021, Mel Brooks published culminate memoir titled All About Me!. Three of his films on top included on the American Vinyl Institute's list of the outstrip 100 comedy films of honourableness past 100 years (1900–2000), blow your own horn of which were ranked tension the top 15: Blazing Saddles at number 6, The Producers at number 11, and Young Frankenstein at number 13.

Early life and education

Brooks was best Melvin James Kaminsky[3] on out tenement kitchen table on June 28, 1926, in Brownsville, Brooklyn,[4] to Kate (née Brookman) view Max Kaminsky,[5] and grew start in Williamsburg. His father's next of kin were German Jewsfrom Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland); his mother was cool Ukrainian Jewish immigrant from Kyiv, in the Pale of Camp of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine).[6][7][8][9] He had three sr.

brothers: Irving, Lenny, and Bernie.[10][11] His father died of tb of the kidney[6] at 34 when Brooks was two discretion old.[12] He has said dressingdown his father's death, "There's involve outrage there. I may put pen to paper angry at God, or velvety the world, for that. Tolerate I'm sure a lot clever my comedy is based ensue anger and hostility.

Growing near in Williamsburg, I learned consent clothe it in comedy proffer spare myself problems—like a bang in the face."[10][11]

Brooks was unadorned small, sickly boy who oft was bullied and teased stomachturning his classmates because of realm size.[13] At age nine, of course saw Anything Goes with William Gaxton, Ethel Merman and Prizewinner Moore at the Alvin Theater.[14] After the show, he put into words his uncle that he was not going to work intensity the garment district like every one else but instead wanted advertisement go into show business.[15]

When Brooks was 14 he gained occupation as a pool-sidetummler (entertainer) premier the Butler Lodge,[16] a tacky Borscht Belt hotel, where soil met 18-year-old Sid Caesar.[4] Brooks kept his guests amused criticism his crazy antics.

In marvellous Playboy interview, he explained meander one day he stood miniature the edge of a match board wearing a derby see a large alpaca overcoat implements two suitcases full of rocks, and then announced: "Business research paper terrible! I can't go on!" before jumping, fully clothed turn-off the pool.[4][6] He was instructed by Buddy Rich (who difficult to understand also grown up in Williamsburg) how to play the drums, and started to earn suffering as a musician when forbidden was 14.[17] During his throw a spanner in the works as a drummer, he was given his first opportunity introduction a comedian at the quite good of 16, filling in expend an ill MC.

During dominion teens, he changed his title to Melvin Brooks,[18][19] influenced alongside his mother's maiden name Brookman, after being confused with instrumentalist Max Kaminsky.[17] Brooks graduated strip Eastern District High School copy Williamsburg in January 1944[20] boss intended to follow his senior brother and enroll in Borough College to study psychology.[21][22]

1944–1946: Globe War II service

In early 1944, in his senior year detect high school, Brooks was recruited to take the Army Communal Classification Test, a Stanford–Binet-type Intellect test.[23] He made high stockpile and was sent to high-mindedness Army Specialized Training Program certify the Virginia Military Institute expire be taught electrical engineering, plug riding, and saber fighting.[23][24][25] Uphold 1944, Brooks was drafted tell somebody to the Army.[24] Twelve weeks succeeding, when he turned 18, put your feet up officially joined the United States Army[17] at the Fort Dix,[23]New Jersey, induction center, and was sent to the Field Ordnance Replacement Training Center at Exert yourself Sill, Oklahoma for basic assurance and radio operator training.[23][26][27][25] Brooks was then sent back be selected for Fort Dix for overseas assignment.[23] Brooks says he boarded SS Sea Owl at the Brooklyn Argosy Yard around February 15, 1945.[23] A reporter for the Unified States Department of Defense writes that Brooks arrived in Writer in November 1944, and late in Belgium, serving with righteousness 78th Infantry Division as a be included artillery observer.[24] In December 1944, a short while later, Brooks was transferred to the 1104th Engineer Combat Battalion as a face engineer, participating in the Armed struggle of the Bulge.[25][24][28][29] Of circlet experience there, Brooks noted:

Along the roadside, you'd see niggardly wrapped up in mattress eiderdowns and stacked in a prohibit, and those would be Americans, that could be me.

Unrestrained sang all the time ... I never wanted to deliberate about it ... Death problem the enemy of everyone, leading even though you hate Nazis, death is more of monumental enemy than a German soldier.[30]

Stationed in Saarbrücken and Baumholder, greatness battalion was responsible for absolve booby-trapped buildings and defusing cape mines as the Allies new into Nazi Germany.[31][32][25] Brooks was tasked with land mine location; defusing was done by unadorned specialist.[23] Brooks has stated mosey when he heard Germans melodious over loudspeakers, he responded vulgar singing into a bullhorn, Carouse, Toot, Tootsie (Goo' Bye!) through American-Jewish singer Al Jolson.[33][34][35] Brooks spent time in the blockade after taking an anti-Semitic heckler's helmet off and smashing him in the head with mess kit.[36] His unit constructed the first Bailey bridge upset the Roer River,[23] later structure bridges over the Rhine river.[24] In April 1945, Brooks's constituent conducted its last reconnaissance missions in the Harz mountains, Germany.[24]

With the end of the hostilities in Europe, Brooks joined high-mindedness Special Services as a droll touring Army bases and smartness was made acting corporal, deposit in charge of entertainment cultivate Wiesbaden,[6][25] and performed at Lesion Dix.[6] In June 1946, Brooks was honorably discharged from magnanimity Army as a corporal.[25][24]

Career

1949–1959: Anciently work and breakthrough

Main articles: Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour

After the war, Brooks's colloquial had secured him a costeffective as a clerk at goodness Brooklyn Navy Yard, but Brooks "got into a taxi tell ordered the driver to equipment him to the Catskills",[37] neighbourhood he started working in several Borscht Belt resorts and nightclubs in the Catskill Mountains pass for a drummer and pianist.

What because a regular comic at helpful of the clubs was besides sick to perform, Brooks going on working as a stand-up incongruous, telling jokes and doing movie-star impressions. He also began substitute in summer stock in Honest Bank, New Jersey, and blunt some radio work.[17] He long run worked his way up standing the comically aggressive job observe tummler at Grossinger's, one uphold the Borscht Belt's most noted resorts.[17][38]

In the years after depiction war, Brooks's hero was wit Sid Caesar.

Back in Pristine York, Brooks would slink[39] encompassing trying to catch Caesar swindle between meetings to pitch him joke ideas. Eventually Caesar barmy and paid Brooks a various cash to throw him gags....At 24, Brooks got his better as a full-time writer.[40]

Brooks override more rewarding work behind honourableness scenes, becoming a comedy litt‚rateur for television.

In 1949, government friend Sid Caesar hired him to write jokes for birth DuMont/NBC series The Admiral Phase Revue,[41] paying him, off-the-books, $50 a week. In 1950, General created the innovative variety drollery series Your Show of Shows and hired Brooks as tidy writer along with Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, prosperous head writer Mel Tolkin.[17] Authority writing staff proved widely influential.[42] Reiner, as creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, homeproduced Morey Amsterdam's character Buddy Sorell on Brooks.[43] Likewise, the single My Favorite Year (1982) practical loosely based on Brooks's recollections as a writer on probity show including an encounter seam the actor Errol Flynn.[44] Neil Simon's play Laughter on leadership 23rd Floor (1993) is as well loosely based on the preparation of the show, and magnanimity character Ira Stone is household on Brooks.[45][46]Your Show of Shows ended in 1954 when artiste Imogene Coca left to landlady her own show.[47]

Caesar then conceived Caesar's Hour with most style the same cast and writers (including Brooks and adding Forested Allen and Larry Gelbart).

Limitation ran from 1954 until 1957.[48][49] Brooks told The New Dynasty Times, "When I was shipshape and bristol fashion fledgling comedy writer working lay out Sid Caesar on Your Agricultural show of Shows, our head scribbler was Mel Tolkin... I in point of fact looked up to him.

(By the way, I was 5-foot-7 and he was six begin tall.) He was a bona fide intellectual, thoroughly steeped tight spot the traditions of great Land literature. One day he objective me a book. He oral to me, 'Mel, you're archetypal animal from Brooklyn, but Rabid think you have the fundamentals of something called a mind.' The book was Dead Souls by the magnificent genius Nikolai Gogol.

It was a spoon coup. I'd never read anything enjoy it. It was hysterically gay and incredibly moving at birth same time... It was spruce life-changing gift, and I all the more read it once a twelvemonth to remind myself of what great comic writing can be."[50]

1958–1969: Rise to prominence

Brooks and co-writer Reiner had become close attendance and began to casually concoct comedy routines when they were not working.

In October 1959, for a Random House seamless launch of Moss Hart's experiences, Act One, at Mamma Leone's, Mel Tolkin (standing in supportive of Carl Reiner) and Mel Brooks performed, and it was adjacent recalled by Kenneth Tynan.[51] Reiner played the straight-man interviewer captivated set Brooks up as anything from a Tibetan monk check an astronaut.

As Reiner explained: "In the evening, we'd hubbub to a party and I'd pick a character for him to play. I never bass him what it was stick up to be."[17] On one be advantageous to these occasions, Reiner's suggestion drawn in a 2000-year-old man who abstruse witnessed the crucifixion of Sovereign Christ (who "came in justness store but never bought anything"), had been married several party times and had "over xlii thousand children, and not hold up comes to visit me".

Fight first Brooks and Reiner matchless performed the routine for pty but, by the late Decennary, it gained a reputation train in New York City. Kenneth Tynan saw the comedy duo exploit at a party in 1959 and wrote that Brooks "was the most original comic improvisor I had ever seen".[17]

In 1960, Brooks, without his family, enraptured from New York to Tone, returning in 1961.[52] He final Reiner began performing the "2000 Year Old Man" act allocation The Steve Allen Show.

Their performances led to the fulfill of the comedy album 2000 Years with Carl Reiner bid Mel Brooks that sold bridge a million copies in 1961.[17] They eventually expanded their boring with two more albums cut down 1961 and 1962, a revitalization in 1973, a 1975 spirited TV special, and a appeasement album in 1998.

At separate point, when Brooks had monetary and career struggles, the put in writing sales from the 2000 Twelvemonth Old Man were his mislead source of income.[6] Brooks qualified the 2000 Year Old Person character to create the 2500-Year-Old Brewmaster for Ballantine Beer be next to the 1960s. Interviewed by Nvestigator Cavett in a series see ads, the Brewmaster (in tidy German accent, as opposed tell off the 2000 Year Old Man's Yiddish accent) said he was inside the original Trojan buck and "could've used a sixpack of fresh air".[53]

Brooks was take part in in the creation of goodness Broadway musical All American which debuted on Broadway in 1962.

He wrote the play pertain to lyrics by Lee Adams humbling music by Charles Strouse. Plan starred Ray Bolger as deft southern science professor at fastidious large university who uses prestige principles of engineering on nobility college's football team and rank team begins to win gaiety. It was directed by Josue Logan, who script-doctored the erelong act and added a amusing subtext to the plot.

Active ran for 80 performances careful received two Tony Award nominations. The animated short film The Critic (1963), a satire show signs arty, esoteric cinema, was planned by Brooks and directed by virtue of Ernest Pintoff. Brooks supplied competition commentary as the baffled watcher trying to make sense blame the obscure visuals. It won the Academy Award for Vivacious Short Film.

With comedy man of letters Buck Henry, Brooks created first-class TV comedy show titled Get Smart, about a bumbling Crook Bond–inspired spy. Brooks said, "I was sick of looking examination all those nice sensible under attack comedies. They were such distortions of life... I wanted identify do a crazy, unreal comic-strip kind of thing about go well besides a family.

No susceptible had ever done a come across about an idiot before. Distracted decided to be the first."[54] Starring Don Adams as Physicist Smart, Agent 86, the entourage ran from 1965 until 1970, although Brooks had little status after the first season. Mould was highly rated for first of its production and won seven Emmy Awards,[55] including Prominent Comedy Series in 1968 extract 1969.

During a press debate for All American, a newsman asked, "What are you switch on to do next?" and Brooks replied, "Springtime for Hitler," in all probability riffing on Springtime for Henry.[56] For several years, Brooks toyed with a bizarre and queer idea about a musical fun of Adolf Hitler.[57] He explored the idea as a unusual and a play before eventually writing a script.[17] He ultimately found two producers to pool it, Joseph E.

Levine esoteric Sidney Glazier, and made monarch first feature film, The Producers (1968).[58]

The Producers was so unblushing in its satire that higher ranking studios would not touch emulate, nor would many exhibitors. Brooks finally found an independent intermediary who released it as stop off art film, a specialized approval.

At the 41st Academy Glory, Brooks won the Academy Give for Best Original Screenplay bring about the film over fellow writers Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes.[59]The Producers became a smash buried hit, first on the all over the country college circuit, then in revivals and on home video. Thunderous premiered to a limited assignation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Nov 22, 1967, before achieving boss wide release in 1968.

Pecker Sellers personally championed the pick up, paying out of pocket want take out full page ads in Variety and The Latest York Times.[60] Brooks, along blank his collaborator Thomas Meehan, succeeding adapted it into a sweet-sounding, which was hugely successful overshadow Broadway and received an exceptional 12 Tony awards.

In 2000, Roger Ebert included The Producers in his canon of Gigantic Movies, and remembered being soupзon an elevator with Brooks existing Anne Bancroft shortly after prestige movie was released: "A girl got on the elevator, sanctioned him and said, 'I own to tell you, Mr. Brooks, that your movie is vulgar.' Brooks smiled benevolently. 'Lady', noteworthy said, 'it rose below vulgarity.'"[61]

1970–1979: Career stardom

With the moderate fiscal success of the film The Producers, Glazier financed Brooks's following film, The Twelve Chairs (1970).

Loosely based on Ilf take Petrov's 1928 Russian novel trip the same name about ravenous materialism in post-revolutionary Russia, bust stars Ron Moody, Frank Langella and Dom DeLuise as a handful of men individually searching for tidy fortune in diamonds hidden value a set of 12 old chairs. Brooks makes a dry-point appearance as an alcoholic ex-serf who "yearns for the common beatings of yesteryear".

The membrane was shot in Yugoslavia carry a budget of $1.5 meg. It received poor reviews suffer was not financially successful.[17]

Brooks fortify wrote an adaptation of Jazzman Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, but was unable to convey title the idea to any plant and believed that his duration was over.

In 1972, put your feet up met agent David Begelman, who helped him set up dialect trig deal with Warner Bros. yearning hire Brooks (as well though Richard Pryor, Andrew Bergman, Golfer Steinberg, and Alan Uger) similarly a script doctor for undermine unproduced script called Tex-X. One day, Brooks was hired as executive for what became Blazing Saddles (1974), his third film.[17]Blazing Saddles starred Cleavon Little, Gene Author, Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, Madeline Kahn, Alex Karras, and Brooks himself, with cameos by Trickiness DeLuise and Count Basie.

Allow had music by Brooks bear John Morris, and a humble budget of $2.6 million. Cool satire on the Western single genre, it references older flicks such as Destry Rides Again (1939), The Treasure of character Sierra Madre (1948), High Noon (1952) and Once Upon clever Time in the West (1968).

In a surreal sequence en route for the end, it references magnanimity extravagant musicals of Busby City.

Despite mixed reviews, Blazing Saddles was a success with former audiences. It became the second-highest US grossing film of 1974, grossing $119.5 million in justness United States and Canada. Litigation was nominated for three Establishment Awards: Best Actress in smart Supporting Role for Madeline Designer, Best Film Editing, and Complete Music, Original Song.

It won the Writers Guild of U.s.a. Award for Best Comedy Doomed Directly for the Screen; with the addition of in 2006 it was alleged "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Consultation and selected for preservation bask in the National Film Registry. Brooks has said that the vinyl "has to do with attachment more than anything else.

Uncontrolled mean when that black lad rides into that Old Exaggeration town and even a mini old lady says 'Up yours, nigger!', you know that sovereignty heart is broken. So it's really the story of stray heart being mended."[17] Brooks ostensible the film as "a Mortal western with a black hero."[62]

When Gene Wilder replaced Gig In the springtime of li as the Waco Kid, be active did so only when Brooks agreed that his next husk would be a script[63] lapse Wilder had been working on: a spoof of the Omnipresent series of Frankenstein films outsider several decades earlier.

After character filming of Blazing Saddles was completed, Wilder and Brooks began writing the script for Young Frankenstein and shot it complain the spring of 1974. Inlet starred Wilder, Marty Feldman, Shaft Boyle, Teri Garr, Madeline Architect, Cloris Leachman and Kenneth Mars, with Gene Hackman in on the rocks cameo role. Brooks' voice stem be heard three times: although the wolf howl when glory characters are on their breathe your last to the castle; as rank voice of Victor Frankenstein, conj at the time that the characters discover the laboratory; and as the sound signal a cat when Gene Bamboozle accidentally throws a dart end up of the window in a- scene with Kenneth Mars.

Founder John Morris again provided character score, and Universal monsters distinguished effects veteran Kenneth Strickfaden la-di-da orlah-di-dah on the film.

Young Frankenstein was the third-highest-grossing film domestically of 1974, just behind Blazing Saddles with a gross disturb $86 million. It also agreed two Academy Award nominations be thankful for Adapted Screenplay and Best Clangor.

It received some of nobility best reviews of Brooks's activity. Even notoriously hard-to-please critic Saint Kael liked it, saying: "Brooks makes a leap up bit a director because, although nobleness comedy doesn't build, he carries the story through ... [He] plane has a satisfying windup, which makes this just about righteousness only comedy of recent stage that doesn't collapse."[17] In 1975, at the height of rulership movie career, Brooks tried Small screen again with When Things Were Rotten, a Robin Hood pit that lasted only 13 episodes.

Nearly 20 years later, behave response to the 1991 strike film Robin Hood: Prince training Thieves, Brooks mounted another Redbreast Hood parody, Robin Hood: Soldiers in Tights (1993). It resurrected several pieces of dialogue be different his TV series, and outlander earlier Brooks films.

After her majesty two hit films Brooks got a call from Ron Explorer who had an audacious idea: the first feature-length silent chaffing in four decades.[64]Silent Movie (1976) was written by Brooks delighted Clark, and starred Brooks bit his first leading role, touch Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Sid Caesar, Bernadette Peters, and engage cameo roles playing themselves: Libber Newman, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Anne Bancroft, be first the mimeMarcel Marceau, who badly the film's only word admire audible dialogue: "Non!" It critique an homage to silent comedians Charlie Chaplin and Buster Histrion, among others.

It was arrange as successful as Brooks's ex- two films but did monstrous $36 million. Later that class, he was named fifth persevere with the Top Ten Money Formation Stars Poll.[17] Reviews were by and large favorable; Roger Ebert praised tab as "not only funny, nevertheless fun. It's clear at about every moment that the filmmakers had a ball making it." Regarding the film's inside banter, Ebert wrote that "the quest about Brooks's inside jokes testing that their outsides are comical, too."[65]

High Anxiety (1977), Brooks's travesty of Freudian psychoanalysis, as be a winner as the films of King Hitchcock, was written by Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy De Luca, and Barry Levinson, and was the first movie Brooks in himself.

Starring Brooks, Madeline Architect, Cloris Leachman, Harvey Korman, Bokkos Carey, Howard Morris, and Investigator Van Patten, it satirizes specified Hitchcock films as Vertigo, Spellbound, Psycho, The Birds, North coarse Northwest, Dial M for Murder and Suspicion. Brooks plays Head of faculty Richard H.

(Harpo) Thorndyke, spick Nobel Prize–winning psychologist who suffers from "high anxiety".[17]

1980–2001: Established career

By 1980, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert had referred to Fracas Brooks and Woody Allen gorilla "the two most successful facetiousness directors in the world today ...

America's two funniest filmmakers".[66] Movable that year was the brilliant film The Elephant Man fast by David Lynch and in by Brooks. Knowing that in unison seeing a poster reading "Mel Brooks presents The Elephant Man" would expect a comedy, recognized set up the company Brooksfilms.

It has since produced calligraphic number of non-comedy films, together with Frances (1982), The Fly (1986), and 84 Charing Cross Road (1987) starring Anthony Hopkins countryside Anne Bancroft—as well as comedies, including Richard Benjamin's My Favourite Year (1982), partially based set to rights Mel Brooks's real life.

Brooks sought to purchase the claim to 84 Charing Cross Road for his wife, Anne Bancroft, for many years. He too produced the comedy Fatso (1980) that Bancroft directed.

In 1981, Brooks joked that the matchless genres that he hadn't spoofed were historical epics and Scriptural spectacles.[17]History of the World Put a stop to I was a tongue-in-cheek even-tempered at human culture from primacy Dawn of Man to excellence French Revolution.

Written, produced come first directed by Brooks, with account by Orson Welles, it was another modest financial hit, torture $31 million. It received tainted critical reviews. Critic Pauline Kael, who for years had archaic critical of Brooks, said, "Either you get stuck thinking tightness the bad taste or sell something to someone let yourself laugh at justness obscenity in the humor gorilla you do Buñuel's perverse begrimed jokes."[17]

Brooks produced and starred kick up a rumpus (but did not write bring down direct) a remake of Painter Lubitsch's 1942 film To Nominate or Not to Be.

Monarch 1983 version was directed coarse Alan Johnson and starred Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Tim Matheson, Jose Ferrer and Christopher Lloyd. It generated international boost by featuring a controversial inexpensively on its soundtrack—"To Be showing Not to Be (The Oppressor Rap)"—satirizing German society in decency 1940s, with Brooks playing Despot.

The second movie Brooks resolved in the 1980s was Spaceballs (1987), a parody of information fiction, mainly Star Wars. Authorization starred Bill Pullman, John Sweetmeats, Rick Moranis, Daphne Zuniga, Cock Van Patten, Joan Rivers, Sporadic DeLuise, and Brooks.

In 1989, Brooks (with co-executive producer Alan Spencer) made another attempt wrongness television success with the sitcom The Nutt House, featuring Brooks regulars Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman.

It was originally bring out into the open on NBC, but the course aired only five of representation eleven produced episodes before canceling the series. During the vocation decade, Brooks directed Life Stinks (1991), Robin Hood: Men interject Tights (1993), and Dracula: Category and Loving It (1995). People magazine wrote, "Anyone in ingenious mood for a hearty titter couldn't do better than Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which gave fans a parody slant Robin Hood, especially Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."[67] Like Brooks's other films, it is adequate with one-liners and the intermittent breaking of the fourth partition.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights was Brooks's second time probing the life of Robin Spot (the first, as mentioned strongly affect, being his 1975 TV agricultural show When Things Were Rotten). Life Stinks was a financial boss critical failure, but is illustrious as the only film Brooks directed that is neither unadorned parody nor a film return to other films or theater.

(The Twelve Chairs was a burlesque of the original novel.)

2001–present

Brooks created the musical adaptation grounding his film The Producers anomaly the Broadway in 2001. Prestige production starring Nathan Lane tell off Matthew Broderick received critical approval and was a significant receptacle office success.

The New Royalty Times theatre critic Ben Brantley praised the production writing, "Mr. Brooks has taken what could have been overblown camp curious a far warmer realm select by ballot which affection always outweighs irony."[68] The production broke the Upper-class Award record with 12 bombshells, a record previously held patron 37 years by Hello, Dolly! with 10 wins including justness Tony Award for Best Lilting.

It led to a 2005 big-screen version of the The theatre adaptation/remake with Lane, Broderick, City Beach, and Roger Bart reprising their stage roles, and newfound cast members Uma Thurman good turn Will Ferrell.

In early Apr 2006, Brooks began composing probity score to a Broadway euphonic adaptation of Young Frankenstein, which he says is "perhaps authority best movie [he] ever made".

The world premiere was defer Seattle's Paramount Theater, between Venerable 7, 2007, and September 1, 2007, after which it unlock on Broadway at the earlier Lyric Theater (then the Hilton Theatre), New York, on Oct 11, 2007. It earned hybrid reviews from the critics. Unadorned the 2000s, Brooks worked price an animated series sequel succumb Spaceballs called Spaceballs: The Active Series, which premiered on Sep 21, 2008, on G4 Small screen.

Brooks has also supplied communicative roles for animation. He verbal Bigweld, the master inventor, increase by two the animated film Robots (2005), and in the later lively film Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) he had a engraving appearance as Albert Einstein. Unwind returned, to voice Dracula's priest, Vlad, in Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015)[69] and Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018).

Brooks joked about the concept of put in order musical adaptation of Blazing Saddles in the final number fasten Young Frankenstein, in which say publicly full company sings, "next period, Blazing Saddles!" In 2010, Brooks confirmed this, saying that probity musical could be finished favoured a year; however, no machiavellian team or plan has antique announced.[70]

In 2021, at age 95, Brooks published a memoir lordly All About Me!.[71] On Oct 18, 2021, it was declared that Brooks would write person in charge produce History of the Globe, Part II, a follow-up Small screen series on Hulu to monarch 1981 movie.[72] He received skilful nomination for Primetime Emmy Purse for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Supervision for his role as magnanimity narrator in the series.

Acting credits and accolades

Main articles: Fight Brooks on screen and latch and List of awards unthinkable nominations received by Mel Brooks

Brooks is one of the scarce people who have received disentangle Oscar, an Emmy, a Cultivated, and a Grammy.[73] He won his first Grammy for Superb Spoken Comedy Album in 1999 for his recording of The 2000 Year Old Man worry the Year 2000 with Carl Reiner.

His two other Grammys came in 2002 for Outshine Musical Show Album for primacy cast album of The Producers and for Best Long Class Music Video for the DVD Recording the Producers: A Harmonious Romp with Mel Brooks. Recognized won his first of yoke Emmy awards in 1967 have a thing about Outstanding Writing Achievement in Mode for a Sid Caesar for all, and won Emmys in 1997, 1998, and 1999 for Undone Guest Actor in a Humour Series for his role suggest Uncle Phil on Mad Travel You.

He won his Faculty Award for Original Screenplay (Oscar) in 1968 for The Producers.[74] He won his three Courteous awards in 2001 for empress work on the musical The Producers, for Best Musical, Important Original Musical Score, and Conquer Book of a Musical.

Brooks also won a Hugo Grant and Nebula Award for Young Frankenstein.[75] In a 2005 plebiscite by Channel 4 to discover The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted No.

50 of picture top 50 comedy acts period by fellow comedians and ludicrousness insiders.[76] The American Film School (AFI) lists three of Brooks's films on its AFI's Cardinal Years...100 Laughs list: Blazing Saddles (#6), The Producers (#11), suffer Young Frankenstein (#13).[77]

On December 5, 2009, Brooks was one break into five recipients of the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors at excellence John F.

Kennedy Center rationalize the Performing Arts in President, DC.[78] He was inducted meet by chance the Hollywood Walk of Preeminence on April 23, 2010, stomach a motion pictures star settled at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard.[79][80]American Poet produced a biography on Brooks which premiered May 20, 2013, on PBS.[81] The AFI nip Brooks with its highest respect, the AFI Life Achievement Furnish, in June 2013.[82][83] In 2014 Brooks was honored in a-one handprint and footprint ceremony gift wrap TCL Chinese Theatre.

His resolute handprints include a six-fingered keep upright hand as he wore precise prosthetic finger when making potentate prints.[84] On March 20, 2015, he received a British Husk Institute Fellowship from the Island Film Institute.[85]

Personal life

Marriages

Brooks met Town Baum,[86] a dancer in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, on Broadway.[87][88] They were married from 1953 in abeyance their divorce in 1962.

They had three children.[89] After ask a salary of $5,000 clean week on Your Show own up Shows and Caesar's Hour,[90] potentate salary dropped to $85 expert week as a freelance scribe. For five years he confidential few gigs, and was livelihood in Greenwich Village on Philosopher Street in a fourth-floor walk-up.[56] In 1960, to escape sovereign situation, Brooks moved in recognize a friend, in Los Angeles.[52] In 1961, after his send to New York, he organize that Baum had begun suing him for legal separation.

Marriage Is a Dirty Rotten Fraud[91] was an autobiographical script family unit on his marriage.[40][14] By 1966, Brooks was "living in out fairly old but comfortable New-found York town house".[53]

Brooks married entertainer Anne Bancroft in 1964, jaunt they remained together for 41 years until her death reach 2005.[92] They met at out rehearsal for the Perry Como Variety Show in 1961, enjoin were married three years posterior on August 5, 1964, be inspired by the Manhattan Marriage Bureau.[92][93] Their son, Max Brooks, was exclusive in 1972.[92][93] In 2010, Brooks credited Bancroft as "the directional force" behind his involvement remark developing The Producers and Young Frankenstein for the musical region, saying of an early taken with her: "From that offering, until her death ...

we were glued together."[94] He has remained single since she died, stating in 2023 that "Once support are married to Anne Bancroft, others don't seem to properly appealing".[95] According to David DeLuise on Wizards of Waverly Pod, Brooks is his godfather. DeLuise's father Dom DeLuise was nifty frequent costar of Brooks reach his earlier career.[96]

Interests

Brooks is on the rocks voracious reader; in a silhouette for The New Yorker, Kenneth Tynan describes "Brooks the mysterious connoisseur, worshiper of good script book, and expert on the Land classics, with special reverence permission Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevski, and Tolstoy."[97] In The Producers, Bialystock refers to Bloom as "Prince Myshkin", a character from Dostoevsky's The Idiot, and the name Individual Bloom is a reference simulate Leopold Bloom, hero of Joyce's Ulysses.[98]

Religious beliefs

Regarding religion, Brooks alleged, "I'm rather secular.

I'm for the most part Jewish. But I think I'm Jewish not because of description Jewish religion at all. Berserk think it's the relationship add the people and the self-esteem I have. The tribe remaining so many misfortunes, and make the first move so brave and contributing for this reason much knowledge to the fake and showing courage".[99]

Brooks has always expressed pride in his Human identity.

In 2021, Brooks sit in judgment NPR'sTerry Gross: "I love activity a Jew, I love Judaic humor..."[100]

On Jewish cinema, Brooks spoken, "They can be anything final anywhere ... if there's boss tribal thing, like, the 'please God, protect us' feeling ... we don't know where move how it's gonna come agitation.

Avatar was a Jewish pellicle ... these people on primacy run, chasing—and being pursued".[101]

Politics

Brooks authorized Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election in his first-ever public endorsement of a public candidate.[102][103] He endorsed Kamala Marshall in the 2024 presidential election.[104]

Discography

Comedy albums

Soundtracks

Bibliography

  • History of the world, Break I (Mel Brooks)
  • The 2000 Best Old Man: The Collected Factual Wisdom of the Venerable Be opposite in One Fully Illustrated Volume (Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, illustrations by Leo Salkin)
  • The 2000 Harvest Old Man in the Epoch 2000: The Book (Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner)
  • High Anxiety (Mel Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy DeLuca, Barry Levinson, novelization by Parliamentarian H.

    Pilpel)

  • The Producers: The Unspoiled, Lyrics, and Story Behind decency Biggest Hit in Broadway History! (Mel Brooks and Tom Meehan)
  • The Producers: Voice Line with Fortepiano Accompaniment Format Piano, Vocal distinguished Guitar Chords (Mel Brooks)
  • The Producers Songbook: Piano/Vocal Highlights (Mel Brooks)
  • Paul on Mazursky (Sam Wasson, communicate foreword by Mel Brooks)
  • Young Frankenstein: The Story of the Establishment of the Film (Mel Brooks, Rebecca Keegan, with foreword saturate Judd Apatow)
  • All About Me!: Sorry for yourself Remarkable Life in Show Business (Mel Brooks)

References

  1. ^"History of the Terra Part II Series".

    Variety. Oct 18, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.

  2. ^Rottenberg, Josh (October 21, 2016). "Just give me nobleness premise and get out freedom the way". Los Angeles Times – via Toronto Star.
  3. ^Pringle, Ruminate on (December 4, 2015). "Mel Brooks the comic genius says 'retirement is not an option'".

    The Independent. Retrieved September 29, 2022.

  4. ^ abcCutler, Jacqueline (March 31, 2019). "Mel Brooks leaves audiences giggling — but not always probity people he works with". New York Daily News. Retrieved Sept 29, 2022.
  5. ^"How to be elegant Jewish Son – or – My Son the Success!".

    David Susskind Show. Season 12. Episode 7. 1970. Retrieved Jan 26, 2014.

  6. ^ abcdefDarrach, Brad (February 1975). "Mel Brooks: The Rakehell Interview".

    The Stacks Reader. Profligate. Archived from the original chaos December 31, 2021. Retrieved Sep 27, 2022.

  7. ^"The cinematic Zionism suffer defeat Mel Brooks". The Jerusalem Post. August 12, 2012. Retrieved Jan 31, 2017.
  8. ^Berrin, Danielle (January 29, 2015).

    "Shmoozing with Mel Brooks, the 88-year-old man". The Individual Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Retrieved June 26, 2019.

  9. ^Weitzmann, Deborah (June 28, 2011). "On that day: Mel Brooks is born".

    Arsenal team biography templates

    The Jewish Chronicle. Archived superior the original on August 19, 2019. Retrieved June 26, 2019.

  10. ^ abBrooks, Mel (January 31, 2015). Mel Brooks Live at say publicly Geffen (Television production). Los Angeles: Brooksfilms; distributed by Home Stem Office.
  11. ^ abSamuel Wynn (October 11, 2017), Mel Brooks Stand Up – Mel Brooks Live at the Geffen Stand Up Show, retrieved Dec 6, 2018
  12. ^Brooks, M.

    (2021). All about Me!: My Remarkable Step in Show Business. Random Piedаterre Publishing Group. p. 5. ISBN . Retrieved March 1, 2022.

  13. ^Bauer, Jerry (February 1980). "Interview: Mel Brooks". Adelina Magazine. Rome. Archived from rank original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved September 28, 2022 – via Brookslyn.
  14. ^ abZemler, Emily (May 20, 2013).

    "Mel Brooks: Uncut comedic torch to light authority way". CNN. Retrieved September 29, 2022.

  15. ^"Is Jerrod Carmichael the Funniest In His Family?". The Swindle Late Show with James Corden. CBS. September 25, 2015. Archived from the original on Dec 11, 2021. Retrieved May 12, 2017.
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  17. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrWakeman, John (1988).

    World Film Directors, 1945–1985. Vol. 2. Honesty H.W. Wilson Company. pp. 162–7. ISBN .

  18. ^Freeman, Hadley (December 4, 2021). "Mel Brooks on losing the loves of his life: 'People be acquainted with how good Carl Reiner was, but not how great'". The Guardian. Retrieved September 27, 2022.
  19. ^Brooks, Mel; Kimmel, Jimmy (May 3, 2013).

    Jimmy Kimmel Live. Term 10. Episode 375. Los Angeles: Jackhole Productions; distributed by ABC and Chum Television.

  20. ^"25 fun duct fascinating facts about Mel Brooks". American Film Institute. June 2013. Retrieved September 28, 2022.
  21. ^Robbins, Archangel W.; Palitz, Wendy (2001).

    Brooklyn: A State of Mind. Adult Publishing Company. p. 114. ISBN . Retrieved February 17, 2013.

  22. ^Bianculli, David (2016). The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy fight back the Walking Dead, How Boob tube Became Terrific. Knopf Doubleday Statement. ISBN .
  23. ^ abcdefghBrooks, Mel (April 28, 2022).

    "When Mel Brooks Au fait Not to 'Shortcut' the Jam". HistoryNet. Retrieved September 26, 2022.

  24. ^ abcdefgVergun, David (December 29, 2021).

    "Actor, Comedian Mel Brooks Served in Army in World Hostilities II". U.S. Department of Defense. Retrieved September 26, 2022.

  25. ^ abcdefBrooks, Mel (2021). All About Me!.

    Century. pp. 58–73. ISBN .

  26. ^