All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business
This month I’ve been taking a look at some of Hollywood’s greats and since next week is the last Sunday and thus a president book, this week’s book is All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business by Mel Brooks.
Mel Brooks was born Melkin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, NY and he adopted his stage name Mel Brooks when he was 14, by shortening his first name and then using his mother maiden name, Brookman. Unfortunately, Brookman wouldn’t fit on the drum he was trying to paint with the name, so he went with Mel Brooks, and it stuck. He was the youngest of four children and his father died when he was 2, so he was basically raised by his mother, three brothers, uncles, aunts, and grandmothers. There is something to be said for having the extended family around you in childhood.
He got his introduction to show business by befriending actor, writer, and director Don Appell, who introduced him to The Borscht Belt, which is where the wealthy Jewish communities spent their summers, aka The Catskills. So he kind of got a start as a comedian, actor, and drummer in the Catskills before the advent of WWII. But born in 1926, he was 17 in 1944 when he was given the opportunity to basically graduate school early and get some officer training if he passed an aptitude test and joined the Army Specialized Training Reserve Program. All of his brothers were serving, with his brother Lenny having been shot down over Germany while on his 36th mission. Lenny was no dummy, he ripped his dogtags off when he bailed out of the plane, knowing that his dogtags marked him as Hebrew…aka Jewish. When he landed and was rounded up, the Germans assumed he was Polish, a misconception he wisely did not correct them on, and he was made a prisoner of war. He survived, but being a POW in a German Concentration Camp was not a cake walk by any metric.
Now Brooks completed all his training with the Reserve program, and then was trained in field artillery. And then when he was actually in France, they decided to make him a combat engineer. He does tell a wonderful story about the farmhouse where he was stationed and the family he befriended, and returning there years later while filming Elephant Man with his production studio, Brooksfilm, and the little boy who had been his buddy was now an adult, and a joyous reunion was had. Made me tear up. He ends his chapter with a kind of poignant perspective. He says “The Army didn’t rob me of my youth; but actually, come to think of it, they really gave me quite an education. If you don’t get killed in the Army you can learn a lot. You learn how to stand on your own two feet.”
After the war, he had to figure out what to do with his life, and he did a brief stnt as a production assistant for Benjamin Kutcher Productions, who would inspire his character Max Bialystock and ultimately his first movie, The Producers. But that was a few years in the future. While working for Benjamin Kutcher Productions he reconnected with Don Appell, who introduced him to Sid Caesar, and Brooks would spend a decade writing for Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows and later Caesar’s Hour. After that he joined with Carl Reiner to create the 2000 Year Old Man, which is still wickedly funny, if you’ve never heard it, it remains hysterical, and it’s basically just Brooks and Reiner riffing together. It’s wonderful.
During all this, he was married, although other than mentioning that his first marriage ended in divorce after three children, he doesn’t really mention it. He DOES mention meeting and marrying Anne Bancroft, who was undoubtedly the love of his life. And while he met and loved her pretty much instantly, he met her after Sid Caesar’s shows had both ended and he was basically unemployed, so he knew they couldn’t marry until he could offer her SOMETHING. Fotunately, that something came when he became lead writer on a show he created, Get Smart, which lasted I think it was four seasons. And when that ended, he made the leap to the movies with The Producers.
Now from here, he talks extensively about his movie career, which is fair, this is what he is best known for. So it starts with The Producers. Next he made Twelve Chairs, which was based on a book by the same title written by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov. Both movies are hilarious and I loved reading the anecdotes behind how they got made. But the first true satire he made was Blazing Saddles, and this is arguably his most famous movie, and famously pokes fun at a much beloved American genre: The Western. He actually approached John Wayne to play the part of Waco Kid, and while Wayne read the script, he declined, saying his fans just wouldn’t appreciate the dirty raunchy humor portrayed therein.
Next he satirized classic Hollywood horror with Young Frankenstein, which was brought to him by Gene Wilder while Blazing Saddles was being filmed. So the two of them wrote that script together, and of course it remains a favorite. Next he revisited Hollywood’s origins with Silent Movie.
And then, while casting about for his next idea, he realized there was a Hollywood legend that was it’s very own genre: Alfred Hitchcock. And so we come full circle this month. He actually reached out to Hitchcock, who was tickled by the idea of High Anxiety, and worked with Brooks on the script. Apparently, during the screening, Hitchcock didn’t make a sound, which made Brooks very nervous about the reception of the finished product. But after the movie released, Hitchcock sent him case of Chateau Haut Brion 1961…which I could definitely not afford, hence the Cream Egg this week…and a letter that said “My dear Mel, What a splendid entertainment, one that should give you no anxieties of any kind. I thank you humbly for your dedication and I offer you further thanks on behalf of the Golden Gate Bridge. With kindest regards and again my warmest congratulations. Hitch”
Which if you remember from the book a few weeks ago, he liked his friends to call him Hitch. So what a wonderful acknowledgement of the movie, from the guy who inspired it all.
Now, after High Anxiety, he had created Brooksfilms to produce films, but he was always careful to keep his name off the films as director, writer, actor, or producer. He wanted to be known for the funny, and he is and was, but there are so many amazing stories out there that needed a production company to back them. So he created Brooksfilms to do just that. So Brooksfilms has famously made The Elephant Man, Fatso, Frances, My Favorite Year, The Fly, Solarbabies, 84 Charing Cross Road
Having satirized Broadway, Russian Literature, Westerns, Horror, Silent Films, and Alfred Hitchcock, Brooks decided his next great satire would be world history, which gave us History of the World Part I, another perennial favorite.
And then he found a script that would let him and Anne Bancroft film together in leading roles, To Be or Not to Be. Still a comedy, it’s mocking Hitler and the takeover of Poland.
And then he looked around for something else to satirize and hit on space operas, which were very big after the success of Star Wars. And like with Hitchcock, he reached out to George Lucas for his blessing, which Lucas gave, but warned that any figurines would be impossible to sell due to the characters resemblance to Star Wars characters. Which is why Spaceballs has the big scene in there with Yoghurt an MERCHANDISING!
His next film satirizes the rich while utterly humanizing the homeless, Life Stinks, which is I think his least well known, but an excellent addition to the Brooks catalog. It ends with a genuinely uplifting message.
And then came Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which is, obviously, a satirization of the Robin Hood story, which rips pretty heavily on Prince of Thieves, and is my favorite Robin Hood story.
I believe the last movie he made is Dracula, Dead and Loving It! Starring Leslie Nielsen. Having lampooned the Frankenstein legend with Young Frankenstein, this was his answer to Dracula.
And after all this, he was approached to turn The Producers into a Broadway Musical. Which he did, and that musical was later put on film and became the first movie I saw with my now husband, and to me, is even funnier than the original. With The Producers release on Broadway in 2001, he became one of onlyl eight people EVER to have one an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award, and The Producers would win 12 Tony’s, which I believe holds the record to today.
Anne Bancroft sadly died of Cancer on June 6, 2005. But he still has his four children: three with his first wife, and then his son Max Brooks, who he had with Anne. Max is the author of The Zombie Survival Guide, which I have with my survival books, and World War Z, which is the absolute best Zombie book I’ve ever read and I detested the movie. World War Z should have been done as a mini-series, interview, with flashbacks. He has also recently written Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre, which I have not read yet, I’m just trying to figure out where I want to put it on my schedule.
In 2009 Brokos was honored as a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, which recognizes individuals how have made a significant and lasting contribution to American Culture. In 2013 he received the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award. In 2015, he received the National Medal of Arts.
Mel Brooks has managed to do something very few human’s have actually managed: He has LIVED. And he has shared his joy in life through the medium of film and his wonderful sense of humor. While reading this book, I realized that I have seen every movie he’s directed. I have NOT seen all of Brooksfilms productions, but I intend to.
This book was filled with wonderful anecdotes and remembrances of a life lived in full, and not quite done yet. I loved reading it, and highly recommend it.
