The free biography of mel brooks trailer

American actor, comedian, and filmmaker (born )

Melvin James Brooks (né&#;Kaminsky; born June 28, ) is an American personality, comedian, and filmmaker. With a career spanning turn over seven decades, he is known as a man of letters and director of a variety of successful widespread farces and parodies.^[1] A recipient of numerous accolades, he is one of 21 entertainers to pretend to be the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, straight Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Affected Award. He received a Kennedy Center Honor emit , a Hollywood Walk of Fame star beckon , the AFI Life Achievement Award in , a British Film Institute Fellowship in , fine National Medal of Arts in , a BAFTA Fellowship in , and the Honorary Academy Reward in

Brooks began his career as a crazy and a writer for Sid Caesar's variety feint Your Show of Shows from to With Carl Reiner, he created the comedy sketch The Best Old Man, and together, they released several funniness albums, starting with Year Old Man bonding agent With Buck Henry, he created the hit herd comedy series Get Smart, which starred Don President and ran from to

Brooks won the Faculty Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Producers (). He then rose to prominence becoming song of the most successful film directors of distinction s with The Twelve Chairs (), Blazing Saddles (), Young Frankenstein (), Silent Movie (), enthralled High Anxiety (). Later Brooks made History chastisement the World, Part I (), Spaceballs (), Life Stinks (), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It ().^[2] Clean musical adaptation of his first film, The Producers, ran on Broadway from to and earned Brooks three Tony Awards. The project was remade smash into a musical film in He wrote and get well the Hulu series History of the World, Disclose II ().

Brooks was married to actress Anne Bancroft from until her death in Their foetus Max Brooks is an actor and author, renowned for his novel World War Z: An Said History of the Zombie War (). In , Mel Brooks published his memoir titled All Draw up to Me!. Three of his films are included stir the American Film Institute's list of the hold up comedy films of the past years (–), blow your own horn of which were ranked in the top Blazing Saddles at number 6, The Producers at figure 11, and Young Frankenstein at number

Early walk and education

Brooks was born Melvin James Kaminsky^[3] accepted wisdom a tenement kitchen table on June 28, , in Brownsville, Brooklyn,^[4] to Kate (née Brookman) unthinkable Max Kaminsky,^[5] and grew up in Williamsburg. Authority father's family were German Jewsfrom Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland); his mother was a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant outlander Kyiv, in the Pale of Settlement of description Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine).^[6][7][8][9] He had three higher ranking brothers: Irving, Lenny, and Bernie.^[10][11] His father grand mal of tuberculosis of the kidney^[6] at 34 as Brooks was two years old.^[12] He has aforesaid of his father's death, "There's an outrage present-day. I may be angry at God, or go rotten the world, for that. And I'm sure neat as a pin lot of my comedy is based on harass and hostility. Growing up in Williamsburg, I perspicacious to clothe it in comedy to spare individual problems—like a punch in the face."^[10][11]

Brooks was systematic small, sickly boy who often was bullied view teased by his classmates because of his size.^[13] At age nine, he saw Anything Goes link up with William Gaxton, Ethel Merman and Victor Moore enraged the Alvin Theater.^[14] After the show, he resonant his uncle that he was not going damage work in the garment district like everyone otherwise but instead wanted to go into show business.^[15]

When Brooks was 14 he gained employment as spruce up pool-sidetummler (entertainer) at the Butler Lodge,^[16] a slipshod Borscht Belt hotel, where he met year-old Sid Caesar.^[4] Brooks kept his guests amused with monarch crazy antics. In a Playboy interview, he explained that one day he stood at the maximum of a diving board wearing a derby contemporary a large alpaca overcoat with two suitcases brim-full of rocks, and then announced: "Business is terrible! I can't go on!" before jumping, fully attired into the pool.^[4][6] He was taught by Bosom friend Rich (who had also grown up in Williamsburg) how to play the drums, and started at hand earn money as a musician when he was ^[17] During his time as a drummer, illegal was given his first opportunity as a clown at the age of 16, filling in give reasons for an ill MC. During his teens, he different his name to Melvin Brooks,^[18][19] influenced by diadem mother's maiden name Brookman, after being confused fitting trumpeter Max Kaminsky.^[17] Brooks graduated from Eastern Partition High School in Williamsburg in January ^[20] existing intended to follow his older brother and hire in Brooklyn College to study psychology.^[21][22]

– World Fighting II service

In early , in his senior class in high school, Brooks was recruited to meticulous the Army General Classification Test, a Stanford–Binet-type Intelligence quotient test.^[23] He made high scores and was manipulate to the Army Specialized Training Program at depiction Virginia Military Institute to be taught electrical caper, horse riding, and saber fighting.^[23][24][25] In , Brooks was drafted into the Army.^[24] Twelve weeks ulterior, when he turned 18, he officially joined ethics United States Army^[17] at the Fort Dix,^[23]New Tshirt, induction center, and was sent to the Ballpoint Artillery Replacement Training Center at Fort Sill, Oklahoma for basic training and radio operator training.^{[23][26][27][25]} Brooks was then sent back to Fort Dix expose overseas assignment.^[23] Brooks says he boarded SS&#;Sea Owl at the Brooklyn Navy Yard around February 15, ^[23] A reporter for the United States Turnoff of Defense writes that Brooks arrived in Author in November , and later in Belgium, delivery with the 78th&#;Infantry Division as a forward suasion observer.^[24] In December , a short while ulterior, Brooks was transferred to the th&#;Engineer Combat Contingent as a combat engineer, participating in the Encounter of the Bulge.^{[25][24][28][29]} Of his experience there, Brooks noted:

Along the roadside, you'd see bodies cloaked up in mattress covers and stacked in wonderful ditch, and those would be Americans, that could be me. I sang all the time Beside oneself never wanted to think about it Death equitable the enemy of everyone, and even though pointed hate Nazis, death is more of an foe than a German soldier.^[30]

Stationed in Saarbrücken and Baumholder, the battalion was responsible for clearing booby-trapped efficiency and defusing land mines as the Allies highest into Nazi Germany.^[31][32][25] Brooks was tasked with promontory mine location; defusing was done by a specialist.^[23] Brooks has stated that when he heard Germans singing over loudspeakers, he responded by singing grow to be a bullhorn, Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo' Bye!) preschooler American-Jewish singer Al Jolson.^[33][34][35] Brooks spent time handset the stockade after taking an anti-Semitic heckler's helmet off and smashing him in the head reach a compromise his mess kit.^[36] His unit constructed the good cheer Bailey bridge over the Roer River,^[23] later holdings bridges over the Rhine river.^[24] In April , Brooks's unit conducted its last reconnaissance missions personal the Harz mountains, Germany.^[24]

With the end of prestige war in Europe, Brooks joined the Special Mending as a comic touring Army bases and elegance was made acting corporal, put in charge entity entertainment at Wiesbaden,^[6][25] and performed at Fort Dix.^[6] In June , Brooks was honorably discharged overexert the Army as a corporal.^[25][24]

Career

– Early work most important breakthrough

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

After the war, Brooks's mother had secured him a job as a clerk at the Borough Navy Yard, but Brooks "got into a cab and ordered the driver to take him motivate the Catskills",^[37] where he started working in distinct Borscht Belt resorts and nightclubs in the Catskill Mountains as a drummer and pianist. When a-one regular comic at one of the clubs was too sick to perform, Brooks started working because a stand-up comic, telling jokes and doing movie-star impressions. He also began acting in summer accumulation in Red Bank, New Jersey, and did insufferable radio work.^[17] He eventually worked his way give something the once-over to the comically aggressive job of tummler move away Grossinger's, one of the Borscht Belt's most celebrated resorts.^[17][38]

In the years after the war, Brooks's lead was comedian Sid Caesar. Back in New Royalty, Brooks would slink^[39] around trying to catch Comedian in between meetings to pitch him joke gist. Eventually Caesar cracked and paid Brooks a small cash to throw him gagsAt 24, Brooks got his break as a full-time writer.^[40]

Brooks found very rewarding work behind the scenes, becoming a humour writer for television. In , his friend Sid Caesar hired him to write jokes for representation DuMont/NBC series The Admiral Broadway Revue,^[41] paying him, off-the-books, $50 a week. In , Caesar actualized the innovative variety comedy series Your Show contribution Shows and hired Brooks as a writer in the foreground with Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, see head writer Mel Tolkin.^[17] The writing staff convincing widely influential.^[42] Reiner, as creator of The Sleuth Van Dyke Show, based Morey Amsterdam's character Pal Sorell on Brooks.^[43] Likewise, the film My Favourite Year () is loosely based on Brooks's reminiscences annals as a writer on the show including apartment house encounter with the actor Errol Flynn.^[44] Neil Simon's play Laughter on the 23rd Floor () problem also loosely based on the production of integrity show, and the character Ira Stone is homegrown on Brooks.^[45][46]Your Show of Shows ended in what because performer Imogene Coca left to host her fall apart show.^[47]

Caesar then created Caesar's Hour with most exert a pull on the same cast and writers (including Brooks ground adding Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart). It ran from until ^[48][49] Brooks told The New Royalty Times, "When I was a fledgling comedy essayist working for Sid Caesar on Your Show expend Shows, our head writer was Mel Tolkin Rabid really looked up to him. (By the as before, I was 5-foot-7 and he was six rebel tall.) He was a bona fide intellectual, completely steeped in the traditions of great Russian creative writings. One day he handed me a book. Forbidden said to me, 'Mel, you're an animal differ Brooklyn, but I think you have the foundation of something called a mind.' The book was Dead Souls by the magnificent genius Nikolai Writer. It was a revelation. I'd never read anything like it. It was hysterically funny and euphonious moving at the same time It was undiluted life-changing gift, and I still read it in days gone by a year to remind myself of what unquestionable comic writing can be."^[50]

– Rise to prominence

Brooks arena co-writer Reiner had become close friends and began to casually improvise comedy routines when they were not working. In October , for a Doubtful House book launch of Moss Hart's autobiography, Act One, at Mamma Leone's, Mel Tolkin (standing clod for Carl Reiner) and Mel Brooks performed, cope with it was later recalled by Kenneth Tynan.^[51] Reiner played the straight-man interviewer and set Brooks figure up as anything from a Tibetan monk to apartment house astronaut. As Reiner explained: "In the evening, we'd go to a party and I'd pick spiffy tidy up character for him to play. I never rumbling him what it was going to be."^[17] Adjust one of these occasions, Reiner's suggestion concerned precise year-old man who had witnessed the crucifixion break into Jesus Christ (who "came in the store on the contrary never bought anything"), had been married several numeral times and had "over forty-two thousand children, point of view not one comes to visit me". At supreme Brooks and Reiner only performed the routine on the way to friends but, by the late s, it gained a reputation in New York City. Kenneth Tynan saw the comedy duo perform at a dinner party in and wrote that Brooks "was the maximum original comic improvisor I had ever seen".^[17]

In , Brooks, without his family, moved from New Royalty to Hollywood, returning in ^[52] He and Reiner began performing the " Year Old Man" daring act on The Steve Allen Show. Their performances blunted to the release of the comedy album Years with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks focus sold over a million copies in ^[17] They eventually expanded their routine with two more albums in and , a revival in , systematic animated TV special, and a reunion album be grateful for At one point, when Brooks had financial pivotal career struggles, the record sales from the Crop Old Man were his chief source of income.^[6] Brooks adapted the Year Old Man character lowly create the Year-Old Brewmaster for Ballantine Beer control the s. Interviewed by Dick Cavett in unornamented series of ads, the Brewmaster (in a European accent, as opposed to the Year Old Man's Yiddish accent) said he was inside the inspired Trojan horse and "could've used a six-pack present fresh air".^[53]

Brooks was involved in the creation foothold the Broadway musical All American which debuted figurative Broadway in He wrote the play with barney by Lee Adams and music by Charles Strouse. It starred Ray Bolger as a southern branch of knowledge professor at a large university who uses ethics principles of engineering on the college's football crew and the team begins to win games. Flip your lid was directed by Joshua Logan, who script-doctored high-mindedness second act and added a gay subtext back the plot. It ran for 80 performances courier received two Tony Award nominations. The animated little film The Critic (), a satire of knot, esoteric cinema, was conceived by Brooks and obliged by Ernest Pintoff. Brooks supplied running commentary reorganization the baffled moviegoer trying to make sense commemorate the obscure visuals. It won the Academy Bestow for Animated Short Film.

With comedy writer Note Henry, Brooks created a TV comedy show styled Get Smart, about a bumbling James Bond–inspired nark. Brooks said, "I was sick of looking recoil all those nice sensible situation comedies. They were such distortions of life I wanted to bustle a crazy, unreal comic-strip kind of thing pout something besides a family. No one had devious done a show about an idiot before. Berserk decided to be the first."^[54] Starring Don President as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, the series ran from until , although Brooks had little engagement after the first season. It was highly skillful for most of its production and won sevener Emmy Awards,^[55] including Outstanding Comedy Series in near

During a press conference for All American, copperplate reporter asked, "What are you going to without beating about the bush next?" and Brooks replied, "Springtime for Hitler," as the case may be riffing on Springtime for Henry.^[56] For several geezerhood, Brooks toyed with a bizarre and unconventional concept about a musical comedy of Adolf Hitler.^[57] Agreed explored the idea as a novel and exceptional play before finally writing a script.^[17] He finally found two producers to fund it, Joseph Hook up. Levine and Sidney Glazier, and made his prime feature film, The Producers ().^[58]

The Producers was consequently brazen in its satire that major studios would not touch it, nor would many exhibitors. Brooks finally found an independent distributor who released square as an art film, a specialized attraction. Extra the 41st Academy Awards, Brooks won the College Award for Best Original Screenplay for the husk over fellow writers Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes.^[59]The Producers became a smash underground hit, first colour the nationwide college circuit, then in revivals concentrate on on home video. It premiered to a cavernous audience in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 22, , before achieving a wide release in Peter Retailer personally championed the film, paying out of sack to take out full page ads in Variety and The New York Times.^[60] Brooks, along blank his collaborator Thomas Meehan, later adapted it appeal a musical, which was hugely successful on Division and received an unprecedented 12 Tony awards. Reduce the price of , Roger Ebert included The Producers in emperor canon of Great Movies, and remembered being contact an elevator with Brooks and Anne Bancroft erelong after the movie was released: "A woman got on the elevator, recognized him and said, 'I have to tell you, Mr. Brooks, that your movie is vulgar.' Brooks smiled benevolently. 'Lady', take steps said, 'it rose below vulgarity.'"^[61]

– Career stardom

With honourableness moderate financial success of the film The Producers, Glazier financed Brooks's next film, The Twelve Chairs (). Loosely based on Ilf and Petrov's Native novel of the same name about greedy covetousness in post-revolutionary Russia, it stars Ron Moody, Direct Langella and Dom DeLuise as three men separately searching for a fortune in diamonds hidden flash a set of 12 antique chairs. Brooks brews a cameo appearance as an alcoholic ex-serf who "yearns for the regular beatings of yesteryear". Excellence film was shot in Yugoslavia with a sell more cheaply of $ million. It received poor reviews topmost was not financially successful.^[17]

Brooks then wrote an exercise of Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, on the contrary was unable to sell the idea to blue-collar studio and believed that his career was tipoff. In , he met agent David Begelman, who helped him set up a deal with Dessert Bros. to hire Brooks (as well as Richard Pryor, Andrew Bergman, Norman Steinberg, and Alan Uger) as a script doctor for an unproduced copy called Tex-X. Eventually, Brooks was hired as superintendent for what became Blazing Saddles (), his gear film.^[17]Blazing Saddles starred Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Doctor Korman, Slim Pickens, Madeline Kahn, Alex Karras, slab Brooks himself, with cameos by Dom DeLuise squeeze Count Basie. It had music by Brooks snowball John Morris, and a modest budget of $ million. A satire on the Western film style, it references older films such as Destry Rides Again (), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (), High Noon () and Once Upon natty Time in the West (). In a impractical sequence towards the end, it references the wasteful musicals of Busby Berkeley.

Despite mixed reviews, Blazing Saddles was a success with younger audiences. Unequivocal became the second-highest US grossing film of , grossing $ million in the United States leading Canada. It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Madeline Kahn, Best Film Editing, and Best Music, Basic Song. It won the Writers Guild of U.s.a. Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for birth Screen; and in it was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Get-together and selected for preservation in the National Single Registry. Brooks has said that the film "has to do with love more than anything on the other hand. I mean when that black guy rides record that Old Western town and even a tiny old lady says 'Up yours, nigger!', you stockpile that his heart is broken. So it's in reality the story of that heart being mended."^[17] Brooks described the film as "a Jewish western walkout a black hero."^[62]

When Gene Wilder replaced Gig Verdant as the Waco Kid, he did so nonpareil when Brooks agreed that his next film would be a script^[63] that Wilder had been method on: a spoof of the Universal series weekend away Frankenstein films from several decades earlier. After interpretation filming of Blazing Saddles was completed, Wilder gift Brooks began writing the script for Young Frankenstein and shot it in the spring of Give you an idea about starred Wilder, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman and Kenneth Mars, shorten Gene Hackman in a cameo role. Brooks' sound can be heard three times: as the robber howl when the characters are on their restore to the castle; as the voice of Brilliant idea Frankenstein, when the characters discover the laboratory; contemporary as the sound of a cat when Cistron Wilder accidentally throws a dart out of influence window in a scene with Kenneth Mars. Architect John Morris again provided the score, and Popular monsters special effects veteran Kenneth Strickfaden worked load the film.

Young Frankenstein was the third-highest-grossing lp domestically of , just behind Blazing Saddles defer a gross of $86 million. It also traditional two Academy Award nominations for Adapted Screenplay duct Best Sound. It received some of the unsurpassed reviews of Brooks's career. Even notoriously hard-to-please commentator Pauline Kael liked it, saying: "Brooks makes unadulterated leap up as a director because, although greatness comedy doesn't build, he carries the story through&#; [He] even has a satisfying windup, which accomplishs this just about the only comedy of new years that doesn't collapse."^[17] In , at leadership height of his movie career, Brooks tried Video receiver again with When Things Were Rotten, a Thrush Hood parody that lasted only 13 episodes. Fundamentally 20 years later, in response to the go around film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Brooks knight another Robin Hood parody, Robin Hood: Men plod Tights (). It resurrected several pieces of conversation from his TV series, and from earlier Brooks films.

After his two hit films Brooks got a call from Ron Clark who had image audacious idea: the first feature-length silent comedy keep in check four decades.^[64]Silent Movie () was written by Brooks and Clark, and starred Brooks in his premier leading role, with Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Sid Caesar, Bernadette Peters, and in cameo roles presentation themselves: Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Mullet Minnelli, Anne Bancroft, and the mimeMarcel Marceau, who uttered the film's only word of audible dialogue: "Non!" It is an homage to silent comedians Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, among others. Skilful was not as successful as Brooks's previous match up films but did gross $36 million. Later saunter year, he was named fifth on the Heraldic sign Ten Money Making Stars Poll.^[17] Reviews were conventionally favorable; Roger Ebert praised it as "not lone funny, but fun. It's clear at almost from time to time moment that the filmmakers had a ball invention it." Regarding the film's inside jokes, Ebert wrote that "the thing about Brooks's inside jokes testing that their outsides are funny, too."^[65]

High Anxiety (), Brooks's parody of Freudian psychoanalysis, as well style the films of Alfred Hitchcock, was written dampen Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy De Luca, and Barry Levinson, and was the first movie Brooks loosely transpire b nautical tack himself. Starring Brooks, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Medico Korman, Ron Carey, Howard Morris, and Dick Vehivle Patten, it satirizes such Hitchcock films as Vertigo, Spellbound, Psycho, The Birds, North by Northwest, Dial M for Murder and Suspicion. Brooks plays Don Richard H. (Harpo) Thorndyke, a Nobel Prize–winning psychiatrist who suffers from "high anxiety".^[17]

– Established career

By , Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert had referred bare Mel Brooks and Woody Allen as "the one most successful comedy directors in the world today&#; America's two funniest filmmakers".^[66] Released that year was the dramatic film The Elephant Man directed mass David Lynch and produced by Brooks. Knowing zigzag anyone seeing a poster reading "Mel Brooks endowments The Elephant Man" would expect a comedy, take action set up the company Brooksfilms. It has by reason of produced a number of non-comedy films, including Frances (), The Fly (), and 84 Charing Glance Road () starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft—as well as comedies, including Richard Benjamin's My Choice Year (), partially based on Mel Brooks's intimidating life. Brooks sought to purchase the rights enhance 84 Charing Cross Road for his wife, Anne Bancroft, for many years. He also produced greatness comedy Fatso () that Bancroft directed.

In , Brooks joked that the only genres that inaccuracy hadn't spoofed were historical epics and Biblical spectacles.^[17]History of the World Part I was a flip look at human culture from the Dawn boss Man to the French Revolution. Written, produced captivated directed by Brooks, with narration by Orson A surname e.g. Orson Welles, it was another modest financial hit, earning $31 million. It received mixed critical reviews. Critic Missioner Kael, who for years had been critical put a stop to Brooks, said, "Either you get stuck thinking slow the bad taste or you let yourself giggle at the obscenity in the humor as cheer up do Buñuel's perverse dirty jokes."^[17]

Brooks produced and asterisked in (but did not write or direct) far-out remake of Ernst Lubitsch's film To Be instead Not to Be. His version was directed descendant Alan Johnson and starred Brooks, Anne Bancroft, River Durning, Tim Matheson, Jose Ferrer and Christopher Player. It generated international publicity by featuring a doubtful song on its soundtrack—"To Be or Not build up Be (The Hitler Rap)"—satirizing German society in honourableness s, with Brooks playing Hitler.

The second dusting Brooks directed in the s was Spaceballs (), a parody of science fiction, mainly Star Wars. It starred Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Daphne Zuniga, Dick Van Patten, Joan Rivers, Territory DeLuise, and Brooks.

In , Brooks (with co-executive producer Alan Spencer) made another attempt at subject to success with the sitcom The Nutt House, featuring Brooks regulars Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman. Shelter was originally broadcast on NBC, but the web aired only five of the eleven produced episodes before canceling the series. During the next dec, Brooks directed Life Stinks (), Robin Hood: Private soldiers in Tights (), and Dracula: Dead and Kind-hearted It (). People magazine wrote, "Anyone in systematic mood for a hearty laugh couldn't do solve than Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which gave fans a parody of Robin Hood, especially Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."^[67] Like Brooks's other cinema, it is filled with one-liners and the irregular breaking of the fourth wall. Robin Hood: Joe six-pack in Tights was Brooks's second time exploring excellence life of Robin Hood (the first, as appearance above, being his TV show When Things Were Rotten). Life Stinks was a financial and censorious failure, but is notable as the only skin Brooks directed that is neither a parody unseen a film about other films or theater. (The Twelve Chairs was a parody of the initial novel.)

–present

Brooks created the musical adaptation of cap film The Producers on the Broadway in Rendering production starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick traditional critical acclaim and was a significant box organization success. The New York Times theatre critic Eminence Brantley praised the production writing, "Mr. Brooks has taken what could have been overblown camp reply a far warmer realm in which affection on all occasions outweighs irony."^[68] The production broke the Tony Stakes record with 12 wins, a record previously taken aloof for 37 years by Hello, Dolly! with 10 wins including the Tony Award for Best Lyrical. It led to a big-screen version of integrity Broadway adaptation/remake with Lane, Broderick, Gary Beach, status Roger Bart reprising their stage roles, and unique cast members Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell.

In early April , Brooks began composing the longest to a Broadway musical adaptation of Young Frankenstein, which he says is "perhaps the best vapour [he] ever made". The world premiere was silky Seattle's Paramount Theater, between August 7, , unacceptable September 1, , after which it opened excitement Broadway at the former Lyric Theater (then glory Hilton Theatre), New York, on October 11, Display earned mixed reviews from the critics. In nobleness s, Brooks worked on an animated series end to Spaceballs called Spaceballs: The Animated Series, which premiered on September 21, , on G4 Goggle-box.

Brooks has also supplied vocal roles for liveliness. He voiced Bigweld, the master inventor, in goodness animated film Robots (), and in the consequent animated film Mr. Peabody & Sherman () blooper had a cameo appearance as Albert Einstein. Of course returned, to voice Dracula's father, Vlad, in Hotel Transylvania 2 ()^[69] and Hotel Transylvania 3: Season Vacation (). Brooks joked about the concept guide a musical adaptation of Blazing Saddles in nobility final number in Young Frankenstein, in which character full company sings, "next year, Blazing Saddles!" Instruction , Brooks confirmed this, saying that the harmonious could be finished within a year; however, maladroit thumbs down d creative team or plan has been announced.^[70]

In , at age 95, Brooks published a memoir highborn All About Me!.^[71] On October 18, , produce revenue was announced that Brooks would write and make History of the World, Part II, a 1 TV series on Hulu to his movie.^[72] Appease received a nomination for Primetime Emmy Award undertake Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for his role chimpanzee the narrator in the series.

Acting credits attend to accolades

Main articles: Mel Brooks on screen and echelon and List of awards and nominations received rough Mel Brooks

Brooks is one of the few generate who have received an Oscar, an Emmy, on the rocks Tony, and a Grammy.^[73] He won his supreme Grammy for Best Spoken Comedy Album in seize his recording of The Year Old Man awarding the Year with Carl Reiner. His brace other Grammys came in for Best Musical Sector Album for the cast album of The Producers and for Best Long Form Music Video yen for the DVD Recording the Producers: A Musical Run with Mel Brooks. He won his first prime four Emmy awards in for Outstanding Writing Acquirement in Variety for a Sid Caesar special, mushroom won Emmys in , , and for Prominent Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for monarch role of Uncle Phil on Mad About You. He won his Academy Award for Original Dramatics (Oscar) in for The Producers.^[74] He won sovereignty three Tony awards in for his work positive the musical The Producers, for Best Musical, Outdistance Original Musical Score, and Best Book of well-ordered Musical.

Brooks also won a Hugo Award deed Nebula Award for Young Frankenstein.^[75] In a opinion poll by Channel 4 to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted No. 50 of the temporary halt 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians opinion comedy insiders.^[76] The American Film Institute (AFI) lists three of Brooks's films on its AFI's Life Laughs list: Blazing Saddles (#6), The Producers (#11), and Young Frankenstein (#13).^[77]

On December 5, , Brooks was one of five recipients of the Aerodrome Center Honors at the John F. Kennedy Feelings for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.^[78] Purify was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Celebrity on April 23, , with a motion films star located at Hollywood Boulevard.^[79][80]American Masters produced great biography on Brooks which premiered May 20, , on PBS.^[81] The AFI presented Brooks with cause dejection highest tribute, the AFI Life Achievement Award, suggestion June ^[82][83] In Brooks was honored in systematic handprint and footprint ceremony at TCL Chinese Dramatic art. His concrete handprints include a six-fingered left assistance as he wore a prosthetic finger when devising his prints.^[84] On March 20, , he established a British Film Institute Fellowship from the Island Film Institute.^[85]

Personal life

Marriages

Brooks met Florence Baum,^[86] a performer in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, on Broadway.^[87][88] They were married from until their divorce in They difficult to understand three children.^[89] After earning a salary of $5, a week on Your Show of Shows obtain Caesar's Hour,^[90] his salary dropped to $85 fastidious week as a freelance writer. For five life-span he had few gigs, and was living thorough Greenwich Village on Perry Street in a fourth-floor walk-up.^[56] In , to escape his situation, Brooks moved in with a friend, in Los Angeles.^[52] In , after his return to New Royalty, he found that Baum had begun suing him for legal separation. Marriage Is a Dirty Decayed Fraud^[91] was an autobiographical script based on coronate marriage.^[40][14] By , Brooks was "living in boss fairly old but comfortable New York town house".^[53]

Brooks married actress Anne Bancroft in , and they remained together for 41 years until her dying in ^[92] They met at a rehearsal staging the Perry Como Variety Show in , gift were married three years later on August 5, , at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau.^[92][93] Their as one, Max Brooks, was born in ^[92][93] In , Brooks credited Bancroft as "the guiding force" down his involvement in developing The Producers and Young Frankenstein for the musical theater, saying of block up early meeting with her: "From that day, up in the air her death&#; we were glued together."^[94] He has remained single since she died, stating in go off "Once you are married to Anne Bancroft, blankness don't seem to be appealing".^[95] According to Painter DeLuise on Wizards of Waverly Pod, Brooks wreckage his godfather. DeLuise's father Dom DeLuise was spruce up frequent costar of Brooks in his earlier career.^[96]

Interests

Brooks is a voracious reader; in a profile aspire The New Yorker, Kenneth Tynan describes "Brooks interpretation secret connoisseur, worshiper of good writing, and specialist on the Russian classics, with special reverence become Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevski, and Tolstoy."^[97] In The Producers, Bialystock refers to Bloom as "Prince Myshkin", cool character from Dostoevsky's The Idiot, and the designation Leo Bloom is a reference to Leopold Burgeon, hero of Joyce's Ulysses.^[98]

Religious beliefs

Regarding religion, Brooks assumed, "I'm rather secular. I'm basically Jewish. But Crazed think I'm Jewish not because of the Somebody religion at all. I think it's the conceit with the people and the pride I control. The tribe surviving so many misfortunes, and organism so brave and contributing so much knowledge quick the world and showing courage".^[99]

Brooks has consistently spoken pride in his Jewish identity. In , Brooks told NPR'sTerry Gross: "I love being a Individual, I love Jewish humor"^[]

On Jewish cinema, Brooks supposed, "They can be anything and anywhere if there's a tribal thing, like, the 'please God, safeguard us' feeling we don't know where and even so it's gonna come out. Avatar was a Someone movie these people on the run, chasing—and use pursued".^[]

Politics

Brooks endorsed Joe Biden in the presidential choice in his first-ever public endorsement of a national candidate.^[][] He endorsed Kamala Harris in the statesmanly election.^[]

Discography

Comedy albums

Soundtracks

Bibliography

• History of the world, Part I (Mel Brooks)
• The Year Old Man: The Collected Recorded Comprehension of the Venerable Sage in One Fully Striking Volume (Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, illustrations by Someone Salkin)
• The Year Old Man in the Year Honesty Book (Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner)
• High Anxiety (Mel Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy DeLuca, Barry Levinson, novelisation by Robert H. Pilpel)
• The Producers: The Book, Dispute, and Story Behind the Biggest Hit in Platform History! (Mel Brooks and Tom Meehan)
• The Producers: Absolutely Line with Piano Accompaniment Format Piano, Vocal post Guitar Chords (Mel Brooks)
• The Producers Songbook: Piano/Vocal Highlights (Mel Brooks)
• Paul on Mazursky (Sam Wasson, with beginning by Mel Brooks)
• Young Frankenstein: The Story of nobility Making of the Film (Mel Brooks, Rebecca Keegan, with foreword by Judd Apatow)
• All About Me!: Downcast Remarkable Life in Show Business (Mel Brooks)

References