Mel Brooks

Brooks was born in New York City and grew up in Brooklyn. He learned drumming from Buddy Rich and worked as a musician and entertainer in the Catskill Mountains, where he performed as a drummer, pianist, emcee, and poolside comedian. His early comedy work included radio, summer stock theater, and resort entertainment.

He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, training at the Virginia Military Institute and later working as a combat engineer in Europe. His duties included locating land mines and helping construct bridges during the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he joined Army Special Services and performed for troops before returning to civilian entertainment.

In 1949, Sid Caesar hired Brooks to write for The Admiral Broadway Revue. Brooks later joined the writing staff of Your Show of Shows, working with Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, and Mel Tolkin, and continued with Caesar's Hour. He also contributed to the Broadway musicals Shinbone Alley and All American.

Brooks and Carl Reiner developed the improvisational comedy routine The 2,000 Year Old Man while working in television. Reiner played the interviewer and Brooks performed as the ancient, increasingly exasperated character. Their appearances on television led to a series of comedy albums, including 2000 Years with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, which sold more than a million copies in 1961.

Brooks and Reiner remained close friends and collaborators for decades. They reunited with Jerry Seinfeld on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and their comedy partnership produced further recordings and television appearances.

With Buck Henry, Brooks created Get Smart, a television spoof of spy thrillers starring Don Adams as Maxwell Smart. The series ran from 1965 to 1970 and won seven Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series in 1968 and 1969.

Brooks made his feature-film directing debut with The Producers, released in 1967 and widely released in 1968. The film follows a producer and an accountant, played by Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, who attempt to stage a deliberately disastrous musical called Springtime for Hitler. Instead, the production becomes a hit.

The film initially performed poorly at the box office, but it gained a devoted following and became a comedy classic. Brooks won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, using satire to turn Adolf Hitler and Nazi theatricality into objects of ridicule.

His next film, The Twelve Chairs, was followed by the major successes Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, both released in 1974. Blazing Saddles starred Cleavon Little as a Black sheriff confronting racism in a Western town and Gene Wilder as the Waco Kid. Young Frankenstein, co-written by Brooks and Wilder, parodied the classic Universal horror films and was shot in black and white to evoke their visual style.

Blazing Saddles established Brooks as one of Hollywood's leading directors of comic parody. The film targeted Western conventions while also confronting racial prejudice, bigotry, and the mythology of the American West. It became the second-highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada in 1974 and received three Academy Award nominations.

Young Frankenstein offered a more controlled and affectionate form of parody. Wilder played the descendant of Victor Frankenstein, with Peter Boyle as the monster, Marty Feldman as Igor, and Teri Garr as the doctor's assistant. Brooks and Wilder's collaboration combined farce with careful visual imitation of the 1930s Frankenstein films.

Brooks followed these films with Silent Movie, an homage to silent-era comedy, and High Anxiety, a parody of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers. He later directed History of the World, Part I, Spaceballs, Life Stinks, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

Through Brooksfilms, Brooks produced serious films alongside his comic projects. The company's productions included David Lynch's The Elephant Man, David Cronenberg's The Fly, and David Jones's 84 Charing Cross Road. Brooks also starred with Anne Bancroft in To Be or Not to Be, a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 film, and Bancroft appeared in 84 Charing Cross Road.

As an actor, Brooks made regular appearances as Uncle Phil on Mad About You and won three consecutive Emmy Awards for the role from 1997 to 1999. He also appeared on Curb Your Enthusiasm and supplied voices for animated productions including Robots, the Hotel Transylvania films, and Toy Story 4.

Brooks married Florence Baum in 1953, and they divorced in 1962. He married Anne Bancroft in 1964, and they remained together until her death in 2005. They had one son, Max Brooks, while Brooks had three children, Stephanie, Nicky, and Eddie, from his first marriage.

Brooks adapted The Producers for Broadway with Thomas Meehan. The musical opened in 2001 with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick as Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom. It ran for more than 2,500 performances and won a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Book of a Musical.

The Broadway production completed Brooks's collection of competitive Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards. He later wrote the music and book for a stage adaptation of Young Frankenstein, which opened on Broadway in 2007.

Brooks's honors also include the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, the AFI Life Achievement Award, a British Film Institute Fellowship, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, and an Honorary Oscar. His memoir, All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business, was published in 2021.