MThe story of El Brooks is the story of the United States, Jews, and American Jewish comedy. He was born on the kitchen table of a Brooklyn apartment building a hundred years ago, the same month that Marilyn Monroe first appeared on the opposite coast. The son of European immigrants, Brooks was raised by his mother after his father died when Melvin was just two years old. He was a small, sickly child and the youngest of four brothers, which perhaps explained his almost pathological desire for attention. According to his colleague Larry Gelbart: “When the doctor who delivered him, Mel thought it was applause, and he hasn’t stopped performing since.”
Invoking a good sense of humor… Mel Brooks in the 1983 film To Be or Not to Be dressed as Hitler. Photograph: Ronald Grant
As a youth, Brooks’ favorite method of making noise was drumming, an instrument he was taught by Buddy Rich. Neither of them could have known at the time that they would both have a seismic impact on two great American art forms: comedy and jazz. This young man, like many others, was interrupted by Adolf Hitler. A teenage Brooks joined the army and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. If one wants to understand the artist’s fearlessness or his complete willingness to ridicule the Nazis for the rest of his life, those war years provide ample explanation. This may also explain his statement that “comedy is the opposite of death.”
Returning home, Brooks took his first steps into the world of show business, playing drums at the Borscht Belt resorts in the Catskills to audiences consisting almost exclusively of his fellow Jews. When a regular comedian fell ill, he took over and discovered the unique joy of making audiences laugh. He was soon hired to write for Your Show of Shows, Sid Caesar’s iconic sketch show that is considered to have assembled the greatest team of comedy writers in television history. It was on this series that Brooks met Carl Reiner and formed a personal and professional relationship that lasted until the latter’s death in 2020 at the age of 98.
The couple began improvising comedy routines to entertain friends, and during one of them, Reiner asked what it was like to witness the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Thus was born the 2000-Year-Old Man, perhaps the single greatest premise for a recurring sketch comedy character. These numbers appeared on five albums recorded between 1960 and 1997, but their performance began in the 1950s, just a few years after the end of World War II. Brooks’s humor and accent in this character were overtly Jewish, and at this very moment in history one would have expected him to be good at hiding such things. The only real concern about the double act was that non-Jews would be confused, but such fears were allayed when Cary Grant told Brooks that he had played the record at Buckingham Palace, to the Queen Mother’s apparent delight. According to Brooks: “If the biggest education the world likes it, we are home free.”
A perennial favorite…Carl Reiner (left) and Mel Brooks perform the “2000 Year Old Man” skit at Capitol Studios. Photo: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy.
If The 2000 Year Old Man was a threat within spitting distance of war, then Brooks’s first feature film, The Producers, was definitely dangerous. It would be tempting to assume that a comedic conceit like the aforementioned character is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but Brooks’ life is no ordinary one, and he followed it up with a film about a pair of Broadway producers who discovered they could make more money on a flop than a hit, eventually settling on Springtime for Hitler: A Merry Romp with Adolf and Eve at Berchtesgaden. Larry David, who created an entire season of Curb Your Enthusiasm in honor of the producers., called it “perhaps the greatest comedic premise anyone could ever imagine.” The film was released in 1967, and some felt the horror was too fresh in the mind. One player berated Brooks by saying, “I was in World War II.” Answer? – Me too, I didn’t see you there.
Fun romp with Adolf and Eva… Hitler’s Spring routine in The Producers. Photographer: Cinetext Bildarchiv/MGM/Allstar
Brooks’ second feature, The Twelve Chairs, is perhaps the most underrated film of his oeuvre, demonstrating a love of Russian literature that began when colleague Mel Tolkien lent him Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls during his years working on Your Show. But his next two films, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, made 1974 a banner year for Brooks and effectively ushered in a golden age of parody films. It’s telling that these masterpieces became more popular than the films they spoofed: the former was the highest-grossing Western in history until Dances with Wolves in 1990.
The Golden Age of Parody Film… (from left) Mel Brooks, Cleavon Little and Harvey Korman in Blazing Saddles. Photo: United Archives GmbH/Alamy.
Brooks continued to make parodies in the 1980s and 1990s, but the returns were undoubtedly diminishing. At times over the last half-century, however, it seemed as if his true calling was simply Mel Brooks. This good-natured man has never stopped breaking the fourth wall and embracing chaos, whether it’s honoring Barack Obama and pretending to pull his trousers down, wearing a prosthetic eleventh finger and adding his handprint to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or daring to point out the insanity of BBC’s The One Show at age 90. In the latest incident, the hosts tried to move from a light-hearted conversation to a story about a woman trying to find her long-lost father. “What a crazy show this is,” Brooks remarked.
He produced The Elephant Man, chose David Lynch to direct, and left his name out of the credits so that no one would think it was a comedy. When executives asked for changes, Brooks responded, “We are involved in a commercial enterprise. We showed you the film to inform you of the status of this enterprise. Do not misinterpret this as our participation in a project of angry primitives.” You can’t blame him for trusting his instincts: Brooks is one of only 22 people in history to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony. Not bad for someone who is associated with fart jokes.
In Brooks’s case, it all seems like an instinct and a challenge to death, born from a traumatic youth. A friend of mine once met a taxi driver who bragged that his hero was sitting in the back of a taxi on the way to a gig in London. When Brooks discovered that this taxi driver was a fan, he proceeded to give the entire speech to an audience of exactly one person. Has any figure ever been so strongly committed to spreading joy and laughter among people?
He is the son of immigrants who fought the Nazis and ultimately triumphed in every aspect of show business. He is the American dream come true. Brooks may not have lived to be 2,000 years old, but 100 years seemed just as unlikely when he served in the 78th Infantry Division. When this American entertainment icon was asked about the secret to living a long life after a screening of Blazing Saddles that I attended in London many years ago, he offered sage advice that he apparently lived by: “Don’t die.”