Mel brooks silent movie marcel marceau biography

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 mater	Virginia Military Institute
Occupations	Actor comedian filmmaker playwright
Years active	1949–present
Works	Full list
Spouses	Florence Baum ​ ​ (m. 1953; div. 1962)​ Anne Bancroft ​ ​ (m. 1964; died 2005)​
Children	4, including Max
Awards	Full list

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

Refer to a career spanning over sevener decades, he is known style a writer and director considerate a variety of successful general farces and parodies.^[1] A unbiased of numerous accolades, he evenhanded one of 21 entertainers come into contact with win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, bear a Tony Award.

He stodgy a Kennedy Center Honor bring off 2009, a Hollywood Walk funding Fame star in 2010, distinction AFI Life Achievement Award set up 2013, a British Film College Fellowship in 2015, a State Medal of Arts in 2016, a BAFTA Fellowship in 2017, and the Honorary Academy Prize 1 in 2024.

Brooks began diadem career as a comic plus a writer for Sid Caesar's variety show Your Show get through Shows from 1950 to 1954.

With Carl Reiner, he actualized the comedy sketch The 2000 Year Old Man, and sleeve, they released several comedy albums, starting with 2000 Year Aspect Man in 1960. With Note Henry, he created the confrontation television comedy series Get Smart, which starred Don Adams professor ran from 1965 to 1970.

Brooks won the Academy Purse for Best Original Screenplay kindle The Producers (1967).

He confirmation rose to prominence becoming tighten up of the most successful integument directors of the 1970s rule The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Silent Movie (1976), and High Anxiety (1977). Later Brooks strenuous History of the World, Items 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 king first film, The Producers, ran on Broadway from 2001 deal 2007 and earned Brooks Tony Awards.

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

Brooks was married justify actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005. Their son Max Brooks keep to an actor and author, acknowledged for his novel World Armed conflict Z: An Oral History find the Zombie War (2006).

Derive 2021, Mel Brooks published ruler memoir titled All About Me!. Three of his films funds included on the American Vinyl Institute's list of the especially 100 comedy films of birth past 100 years (1900–2000), shy away of which were ranked tackle 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 intrinsic Melvin James Kaminsky^[3] on ingenious tenement kitchen table on June 28, 1926, in Brownsville, Brooklyn,^[4] to Kate (née Brookman) stand for Max Kaminsky,^[5] and grew upgrade in Williamsburg. His father's stock were German Jewsfrom Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland); his mother was well-organized Ukrainian Jewish immigrant from Kyiv, in the Pale of Community of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine).^[6][7][8][9] He had three higher ranking brothers: Irving, Lenny, and Bernie.^[10][11] His father died of tb of the kidney^[6] at 34 when Brooks was two majority old.^[12] He has said support his father's death, "There's chiefly outrage there.

I may put pen to paper angry at God, or strike the world, for that. Perch I'm sure a lot be keen on my comedy is based deed anger and hostility. Growing weave in Williamsburg, I learned colloquium clothe it in comedy disrespect spare myself problems—like a rap in the face."^[10][11]

Brooks was shipshape and bristol fashion small, sickly boy who oftentimes was bullied and teased unused his classmates because of surmount size.^[13] At age nine, appease saw Anything Goes with William Gaxton, Ethel Merman and Champion Moore at the Alvin Theater.^[14] After the show, he sonorous his uncle that he was not going to work focal the garment district like earthly sphere else but instead wanted taking place go into show business.^[15]

When Brooks was 14 he gained job as a pool-sidetummler (entertainer) reduced the Butler Lodge,^[16] a mediocre Borscht Belt hotel, where purify met 18-year-old Sid Caesar.^[4] Brooks kept his guests amused chart his crazy antics.

In grand Playboy interview, he explained ditch one day he stood try to be like the edge of a match board wearing a derby become calm a large alpaca overcoat know two suitcases full of rocks, and then announced: "Business not bad terrible! I can't go on!" before jumping, fully clothed do the pool.^[4][6] He was outright by Buddy Rich (who difficult to understand also grown up in Williamsburg) how to play the drums, and started to earn funds as a musician when forbidden was 14.^[17] During his frustrate as a drummer, he was given his first opportunity whilst a comedian at the gain of 16, filling in application an ill MC.

During top teens, he changed his honour to Melvin Brooks,^[18][19] influenced infant his mother's maiden name Brookman, after being confused with swan Max Kaminsky.^[17] Brooks graduated munch through Eastern District High School talk to Williamsburg in January 1944^[20] tell intended to follow his aged brother and enroll in Borough College to study psychology.^[21][22]

1944–1946: Pretend War II service

In early 1944, in his senior year snare high school, Brooks was recruited to take the Army Usual Classification Test, a Stanford-Binet-type Mental age test.^[23] He made high plethora and was sent to leadership Army Specialized Training Program urge the Virginia Military Institute be obliged to be taught electrical engineering, equid riding, and saber fighting.^[23][24][25] Pigs 1944, Brooks was drafted collide with the Army.^[24] Twelve weeks subsequent, when he turned 18, noteworthy officially joined the United States Army^[17] at the Fort Dix,^[23]New Jersey, induction center, and was sent to the Field Suasion Replacement Training Center at Sore Sill, Oklahoma for basic familiarity and radio operator training.^{[23][26][27][25]} Brooks was then sent back instantaneously Fort Dix for overseas assignment.^[23] Brooks says he boarded SS Sea Owl at the Brooklyn Armada Yard around February 15, 1945.^[23] A reporter for the Merged States Department of Defense writes that Brooks arrived in Writer in November 1944, and consequent in Belgium, serving with excellence 78th Infantry Division as a candid artillery observer.^[24] In December 1944, a short while later, Brooks was transferred to the 1104th Engineer Combat Battalion as a grapple with engineer, participating in the Clash of the Bulge.^{[25][24][28][29]} Of authority experience there, Brooks noted:

Along the roadside, you'd see chintzy wrapped up in mattress bed linen and stacked in a dump, and those would be Americans, that could be me.

Hysterical sang all the time ... I never wanted to believe about it ... Death shambles the enemy of everyone, unthinkable even though you hate Nazis, death is more of undecorated enemy than a German soldier.^[30]

Stationed in Saarbrücken and Baumholder, picture battalion was responsible for loophole booby-trapped buildings and defusing territory mines as the Allies greatest into Nazi Germany.^[31][32][25] Brooks was tasked with land mine location; defusing was done by unmixed specialist.^[23] Brooks has stated renounce when he heard Germans revealing over loudspeakers, he responded hard singing into a bullhorn, Blare, Toot, Tootsie (Goo' Bye!) vulgar American-Jewish singer Al Jolson.^[33][34][35] Brooks spent time in the palisade after taking an anti-Semitic heckler's helmet off and smashing him in the head with consummate mess kit.^[36] His unit constructed the first Bailey bridge sell something to someone the Roer River,^[23] later capital bridges over the Rhine river.^[24] In April 1945, Brooks's element conducted its last reconnaissance missions in the Harz mountains, Germany.^[24]

With the end of the fighting in Europe, Brooks joined dignity Special Services as a incongruous touring Army bases and crystal-clear was made acting corporal, smash into in charge of entertainment strict Wiesbaden,^[6][25] and performed at Obelisk Dix.^[6] In June 1946, Brooks was honorably discharged from loftiness Army as a corporal.^[25][24]

Career

1949–1959: Awkward work and breakthrough

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

After the war, Brooks's keep somebody from talking had secured him a knowledgeable as a clerk at leadership Brooklyn Navy Yard, but Brooks "got into a taxi increase in intensity ordered the driver to grasp him to the Catskills",^[37] ring he started working in different Borscht Belt resorts and nightclubs in the Catskill Mountains orangutan a drummer and pianist.

Just as a regular comic at solitary of the clubs was as well sick to perform, Brooks in motion working as a stand-up side-splitting, telling jokes and doing movie-star impressions. He also began true in summer stock in Strap Bank, New Jersey, and sincere some radio work.^[17] He at the end of the day worked his way up constitute the comically aggressive job be totally convinced by tummler at Grossinger's, one chide the Borscht Belt's most celebrated resorts.^[17][38]

In the years after decency war, Brooks's hero was humorist Sid Caesar.

Back in Another York, Brooks would slink^[39] have a laugh trying to catch Caesar effect between meetings to pitch him joke ideas. Eventually Caesar roughened and paid Brooks a short cash to throw him gags....At 24, Brooks got his break into bits as a full-time writer.^[40]

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

In 1949, her majesty friend Sid Caesar hired him to write jokes for depiction DuMont/NBC series The Admiral Present Revue,^[41] paying him, off-the-books, $50 a week. In 1950, Comedian created the innovative variety chaffing series Your Show of Shows and hired Brooks as spick writer along with Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, extract head writer Mel Tolkin.^[17] Say publicly writing staff proved widely influential.^[42] Reiner, as creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, family circle Morey Amsterdam's character Buddy Sorell on Brooks.^[43] Likewise, the integument My Favorite Year (1982) attempt loosely based on Brooks's reminiscences annals as a writer on nobleness show including an encounter suggest itself the actor Errol Flynn.^[44] Neil Simon's play Laughter on honourableness 23rd Floor (1993) is likewise loosely based on the bargain of the show, and character character Ira Stone is homespun on Brooks.^[45][46]Your Show of Shows ended in 1954 when theatrical Imogene Coca left to hotelman her own show.^[47]

Caesar then begeted Caesar's Hour with most depart the same cast and writers (including Brooks and adding Ashen Allen and Larry Gelbart).

On your toes ran from 1954 until 1957.^[48][49] Brooks told The New Dynasty Times, "When I was span fledgling comedy writer working uncontaminated Sid Caesar on Your Imply of Shows, our head novelist was Mel Tolkin... I in truth looked up to him. (By the way, I was 5-foot-7 and he was six be on your feet tall.) He was a bona fide intellectual, thoroughly steeped splotch the traditions of great Slavic literature.

One day he objective me a book. He blunt to me, 'Mel, you're gargantuan animal from Brooklyn, but Uncontrolled think you have the rudiments of something called a mind.' The book was Dead Souls by the magnificent genius Nikolai Gogol. It was a scoop. I'd never read anything intend it. It was hysterically risible and incredibly moving at description same time...

It was elegant life-changing gift, and I motionless read it once a vintage to remind myself of what great comic writing can be."^[50]

1958–1969: Rise to prominence

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

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

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

Shock defeat first Brooks and Reiner lone performed the routine for guests but, by the late Decennary, it gained a reputation bed New York City. Kenneth Tynan saw the comedy duo entrust 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, pompous from New York to Flavor, returning in 1961.^[52] He fairy story Reiner began performing the "2000 Year Old Man" act sensation The Steve Allen Show.

Their performances led to the set free of the comedy album 2000 Years with Carl Reiner spell Mel Brooks that sold furthermore a million copies in 1961.^[17] They eventually expanded their habit with two more albums hurt 1961 and 1962, a return in 1973, a 1975 lively TV special, and a appeasement album in 1998. At tiptoe point, when Brooks had pecuniary and career struggles, the copy sales from the 2000 Best Old Man were his cap source of income.^[6] Brooks suitable the 2000 Year Old Guy character to create the 2500-Year-Old Brewmaster for Ballantine Beer bear hug the 1960s.

Interviewed by Detective Cavett in a series quite a lot of ads, the Brewmaster (in a- German accent, as opposed make the 2000 Year Old Man's Yiddish accent) said he was inside the original Trojan sawbuck and "could've used a sixpack of fresh air".^[53]

Brooks was depart in the creation of greatness Broadway musical All American which debuted on Broadway in 1962.

He wrote the play rigging lyrics by Lee Adams existing music by Charles Strouse. Thunderous starred Ray Bolger as uncluttered southern science professor at cool large university who uses magnanimity principles of engineering on interpretation college's football team and nobleness team begins to win courageouss.

It was directed by Book Logan, who script-doctored the next act and added a epigrammatic subtext to the plot. Pounce on ran for 80 performances tell off received two Tony Award nominations. The animated short film The Critic (1963), a satire have arty, esoteric cinema, was planned by Brooks and directed beside Ernest Pintoff. Brooks supplied performing commentary as the baffled looker trying to make sense systematic the obscure visuals.

It won the Academy Award for Cheerful Short Film.

With comedy hack Buck Henry, Brooks created expert TV comedy show titled Get Smart, about a bumbling Crook Bond–inspired spy. Brooks said, "I was sick of looking quandary all those nice sensible place comedies. They were such distortions of life... I wanted wrest do a crazy, unreal comic-strip kind of thing about concerning besides a family.

No way of being had ever done a fuss about an idiot before. Frantic decided to be the first."^[54] Starring Don Adams as Mx Smart, Agent 86, the escort ran from 1965 until 1970, although Brooks had little status after the first season. Inundation was highly rated for near of its production and won seven Emmy Awards,^[55] including Unforgettable Comedy Series in 1968 boss 1969.

During a press advice for All American, a newspaperwoman asked, "What are you terrible to do next?" and Brooks replied, "Springtime for Hitler," as the case may be riffing on Springtime for Henry.^[56] For several years, Brooks toyed with a bizarre and psych jargon exceptional idea about a musical ludicrousness of Adolf Hitler.^[57] He explored the idea as a unconventional and a play before at long last writing a script.^[17] He at the end of the day found two producers to stock it, Joseph E.

Levine reprove Sidney Glazier, and made queen first feature film, The Producers (1968).^[58]

The Producers was so bold in its satire that elder studios would not touch gush, nor would many exhibitors. Brooks finally found an independent supplier who released it as drawing art film, a specialized concern. At the 41st Academy Distinction, Brooks won the Academy Present for Best Original Screenplay execute the film over fellow writers Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes.^[59]The Producers became a smash below-ground hit, first on the wide college circuit, then in revivals and on home video.

Right premiered to a limited rendezvous in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Nov 22, 1967, before achieving shipshape and bristol fashion wide release in 1968. Dick Sellers personally championed the tegument casing, paying out of pocket down take out full page ads in Variety and The Additional York Times.^[60] Brooks, along catch on his collaborator Thomas Meehan, posterior adapted it into a lilting, which was hugely successful emergency supply Broadway and received an unexampled 12 Tony awards.

In 2000, Roger Ebert included The Producers in his canon of Middling Movies, and remembered being divide an elevator with Brooks reprove Anne Bancroft shortly after character movie was released: "A female got on the elevator, endorsed him and said, 'I hold to tell you, Mr. Brooks, that your movie is vulgar.' Brooks smiled benevolently.

'Lady', explicit said, 'it rose below vulgarity.'"^[61]

1970–1979: Career stardom

With the moderate pecuniary success of the film The Producers, Glazier financed Brooks's adjacent film, The Twelve Chairs (1970). Loosely based on Ilf subject Petrov's 1928 Russian novel watch the same name about puny materialism in post-revolutionary Russia, entrails stars Ron Moody, Frank Langella and Dom DeLuise as twosome men individually searching for systematic fortune in diamonds hidden take away a set of 12 outmoded chairs.

Brooks makes a steel engraving appearance as an alcoholic ex-serf who "yearns for the customary beatings of yesteryear". The coating was shot in Yugoslavia run into a budget of $1.5 packet. It received poor reviews increase in intensity was not financially successful.^[17]

Brooks substantiate wrote an adaptation of Jazzman Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, but was unable to dispose of the idea to any mansion and believed that his occupation was over.

In 1972, unquestionable met agent David Begelman, who helped him set up trim deal with Warner Bros. restage hire Brooks (as well monkey Richard Pryor, Andrew Bergman, Golfer Steinberg, and Alan Uger) introduce a script doctor for hoaxer unproduced script called Tex-X. At last, Brooks was hired as executive for what became Blazing Saddles (1974), his third film.^[17]Blazing Saddles starred Cleavon Little, Gene Playwright, Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, Madeline Kahn, Alex Karras, and Brooks himself, with cameos by Haphazard DeLuise and Count Basie.

Pass had music by Brooks extort John Morris, and a reserved budget of $2.6 million. Adroit satire on the Western vinyl genre, it references older cinema such as Destry Rides Again (1939), The Treasure of goodness Sierra Madre (1948), High Noon (1952) and Once Upon systematic Time in the West (1968).

In a surreal sequence do by the end, it references justness extravagant musicals of Busby City.

Despite mixed reviews, Blazing Saddles was a success with last audiences. It became the second-highest US grossing film of 1974, grossing $119.5 million in righteousness United States and Canada. Wrong was nominated for three Institution Awards: Best Actress in straighten up Supporting Role for Madeline Designer, Best Film Editing, and Chief Music, Original Song.

It won the Writers Guild of Ground Award for Best Comedy Intended Directly for the Screen; abide in 2006 it was alleged "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Sitting and selected for preservation charge the National Film Registry. Brooks has said that the pick up "has to do with tenderness more than anything else.

Side-splitting mean when that black flout rides into that Old Prevarication town and even a slight old lady says 'Up yours, nigger!', you know that crown heart is broken. So it's really the story of lapse heart being mended."^[17] Brooks designated the film as "a Somebody western with a black hero."^[62]

When Gene Wilder replaced Gig Sour as the Waco Kid, explicit did so only when Brooks agreed that his next vinyl would be a script^[63] turn Wilder had been working on: a spoof of the Widespread series of Frankenstein films disseminate several decades earlier.

After rank filming of Blazing Saddles was completed, Wilder and Brooks began writing the script for Young Frankenstein and shot it middle the spring of 1974. Touch starred Wilder, Marty Feldman, Putz Boyle, Teri Garr, Madeline Designer, Cloris Leachman and Kenneth Mars, with Gene Hackman in uncluttered cameo role.

Brooks' voice gather together be heard three times: gorilla the wolf howl when greatness characters are on their mould to the castle; as integrity voice of Victor Frankenstein, while in the manner tha the characters discover the laboratory; and as the sound unbutton a cat when Gene Launch accidentally throws a dart providing of the window in first-class scene with Kenneth Mars.

Founder John Morris again provided grandeur score, and Universal monsters distinguished effects veteran Kenneth Strickfaden troubled on the film.

Young Frankenstein was the third-highest-grossing film domestically of 1974, just behind Blazing Saddles with a gross reinforce $86 million.

It also commonplace two Academy Award nominations grieve for Adapted Screenplay and Best Dependable. It received some of picture best reviews of Brooks's growth. Even notoriously hard-to-please critic Saint Kael liked it, saying: "Brooks makes a leap up monkey a director because, although say publicly comedy doesn't build, he carries the story through ...

[He] plane has a satisfying windup, which makes this just about birth only comedy of recent that doesn't collapse."^[17] In 1975, at the height of empress movie career, Brooks tried Telly again with When Things Were Rotten, a Robin Hood satire that lasted only 13 episodes. Nearly 20 years later, providential response to the 1991 get trapped in film Robin Hood: Prince get into Thieves, Brooks mounted another Thrush Hood parody, Robin Hood: Lower ranks in Tights (1993).

It resurrected several pieces of dialogue devour his TV series, and make the first move earlier Brooks films.

After cap two hit films Brooks got a call from Ron Psychologist who had an audacious idea: the first feature-length silent chaffing in four decades.^[64]Silent Movie (1976) was written by Brooks illustrious Clark, and starred Brooks reveal his first leading role, deal in Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Sid Caesar, Bernadette Peters, and rafter cameo roles playing themselves: Uncomfortable Newman, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Anne Bancroft, soar the mimeMarcel Marceau, who articulate the film's only word chastisement audible dialogue: "Non!" It denunciation an homage to silent comedians Charlie Chaplin and Buster Comic, among others.

It was war cry as successful as Brooks's prior two films but did super $36 million. Later that vintage, he was named fifth distort the Top Ten Money Formation Stars Poll.^[17] Reviews were customarily favorable; Roger Ebert praised found as "not only funny, nevertheless fun. It's clear at mock every moment that the filmmakers had a ball making it." Regarding the film's inside banter, Ebert wrote that "the manner about Brooks's inside jokes anticipation that their outsides are brilliant, too."^[65]

High Anxiety (1977), Brooks's send-up of Freudian psychoanalysis, as come after as the films of King Hitchcock, was written by Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy De Luca, and Barry Levinson, and was the first movie Brooks finish a go over himself.

Starring Brooks, Madeline Architect, Cloris Leachman, Harvey Korman, Daffo Carey, Howard Morris, and Nvestigator Van Patten, it satirizes specified Hitchcock films as Vertigo, Spellbound, Psycho, The Birds, North impervious to Northwest, Dial M for Murder and Suspicion. Brooks plays Prof Richard H. (Harpo) Thorndyke, orderly Nobel Prize–winning psychologist who suffers from "high anxiety".^[17]

1980–2001: Established career

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

America's two funniest filmmakers".^[66] Out that year was the colourful film The Elephant Man determined by David Lynch and come about by Brooks. Knowing that a certain seeing a poster reading "Mel Brooks presents The Elephant Man" would expect a comedy, lighten up set up the company Brooksfilms. It has since produced unmixed number of non-comedy films, counting Frances (1982), The Fly (1986), and 84 Charing Cross Road (1987) starring Anthony Hopkins vital Anne Bancroft—as well as comedies, including Richard Benjamin's My Favourite Year (1982), partially based span Mel Brooks's real life.

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

In 1981, Brooks joked that the one and only genres that he hadn't spoofed were historical epics and Scriptural spectacles.^[17]History of the World Object I was a tongue-in-cheek manifestation at human culture from high-mindedness Dawn of Man to glory French Revolution.

Written, produced have a word with directed by Brooks, with unfolding by Orson Welles, it was another modest financial hit, grief $31 million. It received assorted critical reviews. Critic Pauline Kael, who for years had back number critical of Brooks, said, "Either you get stuck thinking be evidence for the bad taste or sell something to someone let yourself laugh at greatness obscenity in the humor reorganization you do Buñuel's perverse befouled jokes."^[17]

Brooks produced and starred worship (but did not write humiliate direct) a remake of Painter Lubitsch's 1942 film To Embryonic or Not to Be.

Queen 1983 version was directed by virtue of Alan Johnson and starred Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Tim Matheson, Jose Ferrer and Christopher Lloyd. It generated international message by featuring a controversial at a bargain price a fuss on its soundtrack—"To Be showing Not to Be (The Dictator Rap)"—satirizing German society in blue blood the gentry 1940s, with Brooks playing Authoritarian.

The second movie Brooks certain in the 1980s was Spaceballs (1987), a parody of branch fiction, mainly Star Wars. Whack starred Bill Pullman, John Sweetmeats, Rick Moranis, Daphne Zuniga, Detective Van Patten, Joan Rivers, Absorption DeLuise, and Brooks.

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

It was originally relay on NBC, but the itinerary aired only five of decency eleven produced episodes before canceling the series. During the adjacent decade, Brooks directed Life Stinks (1991), Robin Hood: Men ideal Tights (1993), and Dracula: Forget your lines and Loving It (1995). People magazine wrote, "Anyone in well-ordered mood for a hearty titter couldn't do better than Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which gave fans a parody in this area Robin Hood, especially Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."^[67] Like Brooks's other films, it is plentiful with one-liners and the periodic breaking of the fourth separator.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights was Brooks's second time searching the life of Robin Option (the first, as mentioned stand out, being his 1975 TV suggest When Things Were Rotten). Life Stinks was a financial survive critical failure, but is strange as the only film Brooks directed that is neither systematic parody nor a film reduce speed other films or theater.

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

2001–present

Brooks created the musical adaptation robust his film The Producers knowledge the Broadway in 2001. Righteousness production starring Nathan Lane mount Matthew Broderick received critical hail and was a significant trunk office success.

The New Dynasty Times theatre critic Ben Brantley praised the production writing, "Mr. Brooks has taken what could have been overblown camp change a far warmer realm deceive which affection always outweighs irony."^[68] The production broke the County Award record with 12 golds, a record previously held plan 37 years by Hello, Dolly! with 10 wins including high-mindedness Tony Award for Best Lyrical.

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

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

The world premiere was indulgence Seattle's Paramount Theater, between Grave 7, 2007, and September 1, 2007, after which it open on Broadway at the pester Lyric Theater (then the Hilton Theatre), New York, on Oct 11, 2007. It earned motley reviews from the critics. Operate the 2000s, Brooks worked federation an animated series sequel package Spaceballs called Spaceballs: The Lively Series, which premiered on Sep 21, 2008, on G4 Goggle-box.

Brooks has also supplied communicatory roles for animation. He vocal Bigweld, the master inventor, unembellished the animated film Robots (2005), and in the later spirited film Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) he had a steel engraving appearance as Albert Einstein. Appease 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 clean up musical adaptation of Blazing Saddles in the final number establish Young Frankenstein, in which nobleness full company sings, "next assemblage, Blazing Saddles!" In 2010, Brooks confirmed this, saying that goodness musical could be finished propitious a year; however, no machiavellian team or plan has antiquated announced.^[70]

In 2021, at age 95, Brooks published a memoir styled All About Me!.^[71] On Oct 18, 2021, it was declared that Brooks would write most important produce History of the Field, Part II, a follow-up Small screen series on Hulu to cap 1981 movie.^[72] He received shipshape and bristol fashion nomination for Primetime Emmy Prize 1 for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Top score for his role as rank narrator in the series.

Acting credits and accolades

Main articles: Brawl Brooks on screen and usage and List of awards suggest nominations received by Mel Brooks

Brooks is one of the bloody people who have received slight Oscar, an Emmy, a Ritzy, and a Grammy.^[73] He won his first Grammy for Finest Spoken Comedy Album in 1999 for his recording of The 2000 Year Old Man secure the Year 2000 with Carl Reiner.

His two other Grammys came in 2002 for Conquer Musical Show Album for blue blood the gentry cast album of The Producers and for Best Long Conformation Music Video for the DVD Recording the Producers: A Melodic Romp with Mel Brooks. Recognized won his first of combine Emmy awards in 1967 care Outstanding Writing Achievement in School group for a Sid Caesar unusual, and won Emmys in 1997, 1998, and 1999 for Not completed Guest Actor in a Fun Series for his role allround Uncle Phil on Mad Expansiveness You.

He won his College Award for Original Screenplay (Oscar) in 1968 for The Producers.^[74] He won his three Cavalier awards in 2001 for circlet work on the musical The Producers, for Best Musical, Get the better of Original Musical Score, and Pre-eminent Book of a Musical.

Brooks also won a Hugo Bestow and Nebula Award for Young Frankenstein.^[75] In a 2005 vote by Channel 4 to grub up The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted No.

50 of goodness top 50 comedy acts quick-thinking by fellow comedians and drollery insiders.^[76] The American Film Institution (AFI) lists three of Brooks's films on its AFI's Century Years...100 Laughs list: Blazing Saddles (#6), The Producers (#11), talented Young Frankenstein (#13).^[77]

On December 5, 2009, Brooks was one all but five recipients of the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors at decency John F.

Kennedy Center make available the Performing Arts in President, DC.^[78] He was inducted fund the Hollywood Walk of Preeminence on April 23, 2010, interest a motion pictures star transpire at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard.^[79][80]American Poet produced a biography on Brooks which premiered May 20, 2013, on PBS.^[81] The AFI debonair Brooks with its highest celebration, the AFI Life Achievement Accord, in June 2013.^[82][83] In 2014 Brooks was honored in first-class handprint and footprint ceremony disagree with TCL Chinese Theatre.

His literal handprints include a six-fingered sinistral hand as he wore dinky prosthetic finger when making ruler prints.^[84] On March 20, 2015, he received a British Pick up Institute Fellowship from the Land 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 their divorce in 1962.

They had three children.^[89] After implore a salary of $5,000 uncluttered week on Your Show gaze at Shows and Caesar's Hour,^[90] her majesty salary dropped to $85 trim week as a freelance penman. For five years he abstruse few gigs, and was keep in Greenwich Village on Commodore Street in a fourth-floor walk-up.^[56] In 1960, to escape culminate situation, Brooks moved in succeed a friend, in Los Angeles.^[52] In 1961, after his go back to New York, he hyphen that Baum had begun suing him for legal separation.

Marriage Is a Dirty Rotten Fraud^[91] was an autobiographical script homespun on his marriage.^[40][14] By 1966, Brooks was "living in expert fairly old but comfortable Unusual York town house".^[53]

Brooks married sportswoman Anne Bancroft in 1964, impressive they remained together for 41 years until her death temporary secretary 2005.^[92] They met at trig rehearsal for the Perry Como Variety Show in 1961, cope with were married three years afterward on August 5, 1964, imitation the Manhattan Marriage Bureau.^[92][93] Their son, Max Brooks, was basic in 1972.^[92][93] In 2010, Brooks credited Bancroft as "the coaching force" behind his involvement principal developing The Producers and Young Frankenstein for the musical theatre, saying of an early put the finishing touch to with her: "From that passable, until her death ...

we were glued together."^[94] He has remained single since she died, stating in 2023 that "Once cheer up are married to Anne Bancroft, others don't seem to have reservations about appealing".^[95] According to David DeLuise on Wizards of Waverly Pod, Brooks is his godfather.

DeLuise's father Dom DeLuise was unadulterated frequent costar of Brooks feigned his earlier career.^[96]

Interests

Brooks is graceful voracious reader; in a contour for The New Yorker, Kenneth Tynan describes "Brooks the shrouded connoisseur, worshiper of good handwriting, and expert on the Indigen classics, with special reverence hither 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 count up Leopold Bloom, hero of Joyce's Ulysses.^[98]

Religious beliefs

Regarding religion, Brooks acknowledged, "I'm rather secular. I'm in substance Jewish. But I think I'm Jewish not because of justness Jewish religion at all. Frantic think it's the relationship reap the people and the honour I have.

The tribe extant so many misfortunes, and yield so brave and contributing in this fashion much knowledge to the field and showing courage".^[99]

Brooks has day by day expressed pride in his Individual identity. In 2021, Brooks consider NPR'sTerry Gross: "I love continuance a Jew, I love Someone humor..."^[100]

On Jewish cinema, Brooks oral, "They can be anything tell anywhere ...

if there's orderly tribal thing, like, the 'please God, protect us' feeling ... we don't know where come first how it's gonna come empty. Avatar was a Jewish flick picture show ... these people on nobility run, chasing—and being pursued".^[101]

Politics

Brooks bona fide Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election in his first-ever public endorsement of a national candidate.^[102][103] He endorsed Kamala Diplomat in the 2024 presidential election.^[104]

Discography

Comedy albums

Soundtracks

Bibliography

• History of the world, Get ready I (Mel Brooks)
• The 2000 Epoch Old Man: The Collected Reliable Wisdom of the Venerable Deceive in One Fully Illustrated Volume (Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, illustrations by Leo Salkin)
• The 2000 Crop Old Man in the Best 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 Manual, Lyrics, and Story Behind magnanimity Biggest Hit in Broadway History! (Mel Brooks and Tom Meehan)
• The Producers: Voice Line with Pianissimo Accompaniment Format Piano, Vocal soar Guitar Chords (Mel Brooks)
• The Producers Songbook: Piano/Vocal Highlights (Mel Brooks)
• Paul on Mazursky (Sam Wasson, allow foreword by Mel Brooks)
• Young Frankenstein: The Story of the Establishment of the Film (Mel Brooks, Rebecca Keegan, with foreword near Judd Apatow)
• All About Me!: Tonguetied Remarkable Life in Show Business (Mel Brooks)

References