Mel Brooks was born on June 28, 1926, in Brooklyn, New York. His birth name was Melvin James Kaminsky. He grew up in a family of Jewish immigrants. His father died when Mel was only two years old. His mother raised him and his three brothers in fairly modest circumstances.
Brooks attended schools in Brooklyn but never received a classical film education. His university was radio, theater, and the entertainment world of New York. As a teenager, he worked a variety of jobs, played the drums, and taught himself to play the piano. He found his way into comedy as a performer and joke writer.
During World War II, Brooks served in the U.S. Army. He was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers and took part in the final stages of the war in Europe. His duties included work connected with mines and unexploded ordnance. After the war, he returned to New York. Instead of a weapon, he picked up a typewriter.
In the 1950s, Brooks moved into television. One of the most important early steps in his career was working on the legendary comedy program Your Show of Shows. Among the other writers were Carl Reiner and Neil Simon. It was there that Brooks developed what became one of his greatest skills: the ability to write jokes quickly, in large numbers, and for very different kinds of performers.
With Carl Reiner, he also created one of his most famous comedy routines, The 2000 Year Old Man. Reiner played the serious interviewer. Brooks played an absurdly ancient man. Much of it was improvised. Within a single character, Brooks could be a historian, a liar, and a complete idiot at the same time.
Brooks made his debut as a film director with The Producers in 1967. It was a black comedy about two Broadway failures who decide to make money by deliberately producing a terrible musical. The problem is that the production they expect to be a disaster becomes a hit. The film’s most famous joke was the musical Springtime for Hitler.
At the time, the subject was explosive. Hitler and the Nazis were rarely portrayed in comedy. Brooks went in the opposite direction. He turned Hitler into a clown. In his view, totalitarianism could not always be defeated most effectively through seriousness. Sometimes you had to take away its dignity.
The Producers won Brooks the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He later turned the story into a Broadway musical. The 2001 production won a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards. The record stood for years.
Brooks’s most important films also include Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, History of the World, Part I, Spaceballs, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
Photo: Wikipedia