Mel Brooks

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Mel Brooks(Melvin Kaminsky)
Image:Mel Brooks.jpg
Mel Brooks circa February 1984

<tr><td style="text-align:left;">Birth name</td><td>Melvin Kaminsky</td></tr>

Born June 28 1926 (age 82)
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Height 5'5" (1.65 meters)
Notable roles President Skroob in Spaceballs
Bigweld in Robots

Mel Brooks (born June 28, 1926 as Melvin Kaminsky) is an Academy Award-winning American actor, writer, director, and producer best known as a creator of broad film farces and comedy parodies, or as he says, "spoofs."

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn, New York to Russian-Jewish parents Maximillian Kaminsky and Kate "Kittie" Brookman. Brooks's grandfather, Abraham Kaminsky, was a herring dealer who immigrated in 1893. He and his wife Bertha raised their ten children on Henry St. on the Lower East Side in New York City. Brooks's father, Max, was their second child.

When Brooks was only two and a half years old, his father died of kidney disease at the age of 34. A year later, in 1930, Kittie Kaminsky and her sons Irving, Leonard, Bernard and Melvin were living at 365 S. 3rd St. in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.

Brooks graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School before serving in the US Army during World War II as an engineer, stationed in North Africa.

[edit] Career

He started out in show business as a stand-up comic before becoming a comedy writer for television, working on Your Show of Shows. In 1961, with Carl Reiner, he created the persona of the 2000 Year Old Man, a collection of ad-libbed comedy routines made into a series of comedy records. With Buck Henry, he created the successful TV series Get Smart. In 1975, Brooks created When Things Were Rotten, a Robin Hood parody that lasted only 13 episodes; nearly 20 years later, Brooks mounted another Robin Hood parody with Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

He later moved into film, working as an actor, director, writer and producer. Despite horrible reveiws and being a dud at the box office Brooks' first film The Producers was given an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and turned into one of the most popular Broadway shows in years. Among his most popular films have been Young Frankenstein (co-written with Gene Wilder) and Blazing Saddles (co-written with Richard Pryor), both of which were released in 1974. Brooks developed a repertory company of sorts for his film work: performers with three or more Brooks films to their credit include Gene Wilder, Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Ron Carey and Andréas Voutsinas. Dom Deluise has appeared in six of Brooks' 12 films; the only person with more appearances being Brooks himself.

In 1980 Brooks became interested in producing the film The Elephant Man (directed by David Lynch). Knowing that anyone seeing the poster with 'Mel Brooks presents The Elephant Man' would go along expecting a comedy, he set up the company Brooksfilms to produce the film. Brooksfilms has since produced a number of non-comedy films, including David Cronenberg's The Fly, Frances, and 84 Charing Cross Road, starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft, as well as comedies, including Richard Benjamin's My Favorite Year.

Brooks' most recent success has been a transfer of his film The Producers to the Broadway stage. Brooks also had a vocal role in the 2005 animated film Robots. He is currently working on an animated series sequel to his 1987 hit Spaceballs, a parody of Star Wars, expected to premiere in 2007.

Brooks is one of a select group who have received an Oscar, Emmy, Tony, and Grammy. Additionally, he won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award for Young Frankenstein. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted #50 of the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. Three of Brooks' films are on the American Film Institute's list of funniest American films: Blazing Saddles (#6), The Producers (#11), and Young Frankenstein (#13).

Brooks and wife Anne Bancroft worked together on three films: Silent Movie (1976), his remake of To Be or Not to Be (1983), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995 ). Years later, they appeared as themselves in the fourth season finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm, spoofing the finale of The Producers. It is reported that Bancroft encouraged Brooks to take The Producers to Broadway where it became an enormous success, as the show broke the Tony record with 12 wins, a record that had previously been held for 37 years by Hello, Dolly! at 10 wins. Such success has translated to a big screen version of the Broadway adaptation/remake with actors Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane reprising their stage roles, in addition to new cast members Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell. As of early April 2006, Brooks had begun composing the score to a Broadway musical adaptation of Young Frankenstein, which he says is "perhaps the best movie [he] ever made." No deadline has been set for the work's completion, but after it is finished Brooks will begin fundraising and production. [1]

[edit] Personal life

Brooks was married to Florence Baum from 1951 to 1961. Their marriage ended in divorce. Mel and Florence had three children, Stefanie, Nicky, and Eddie. More famously, he was married to the actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death from uterine cancer on June 6, 2005. They met on rehearsal for the Perry Como Variety Show in 1961 and married three years later, August 5th. They had one son, Maximillian, in 1972.

[edit] Works

[edit] As writer/director

[edit] Theater

Image:Mel.png
Mel Brooks in the 2005 film of The Producers

[edit] Other works

[edit] Selected quotes

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

"If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets."

"Humor is just another defense against the universe."

[edit] 12 Chairs

  • Chorus: "Hope for the best. Expect the worst. / Life is a play. We're unrehearsed."

[edit] The Producers

  • Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel): "That's it, baby, when you've got it, flaunt it, flaunt it!"
  • Stormtrooper Mel (Mel Brooks): "Don't be stupid, be a smarty / Come and join the Nazi Party!"
  • LSD as Adolf Hitler (Dick Shawn): "Heil Baby!"
  • Lead Tenor Stormtrooper (John Barrowman): "Springtime, for Hitler, and Germany / Winter, for Poland and France!"
  • Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel): "How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?"
  • Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder): "Actors are not animals! They're human beings!"
    Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel): "They are? Have you ever eaten with one?"

[edit] Blazing Saddles

  • Jim "The Waco Kid" (Gene Wilder): "My name is Jim, most people call me... Jim."
  • Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little): "Mornin', ma'am! And isn't it a lovely mornin'?"
    Old Woman: "Up yours, nigger!"
    Jim "The Waco Kid" (Gene Wilder) [consoling Bart afterwards]: "What did you expect? 'Welcome, sonny'? 'Make yourself at home'? 'Marry my daughter'? You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers... these are people of the land... the common clay of the New West. You know – morons."
  • Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little): "Excuse me while I whip this out."
  • Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little): "Where the white women at?"
  • Railway Worker : "Bart, they said you was hung!"
    Sherrif Bart : "And they was right!"

[edit] Young Frankenstein

  • Igor (Marty Feldman): "My grandfather used to work for your grandfather. Of course the rates have gone up."
  • Igor (Marty Feldman) (limping off): "Walk this way" - and Dr. Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) limps off after him.
  • Dr. Frankenstein: (Gene Wilder): "Igor, would you give me a hand with the bags?"
    Igor: (Marty Feldman): "[doing a Groucho Marx] Certainly, you take the blonde and I'll take the one in the turban."
  • Igor: (Marty Feldman): "Sed-a..."
    Inga: (Teri Garr): "Sed-a..."
    Igor: (Marty Feldman): "Dirty word! He said a dirty word!"
  • Dr. Frankenstein "Damn your eyes!"
    Igor (pointing at his lazy eye) "Too late!"

[edit] History of the World, Part I

  • Josephus (Gregory Hines): "I'm Josephus, and I'm the main course over at the Colosseum!"
  • Count de Monet (Harvey Korman) [consistently mispronounced as "money"]: "Bearnaise, do we have any of those delicious raisins left?"
    Bearnaise (Andréas Voutsinas) : "You ate yours. These are mine."
    Count de Monet: "Au contraire, they are mine! I paid for them! Hand them over!"
    Bearnaise [sotto voce, mimicking]: "'I paid for them! They're mine!'" [Blows a raspberry]
    Count de Monet: "Don't get saucy with me, Bearnaise."
  • Count de Monet: "It is said that the people are revolting"
    King Louis XVI (Mel Brooks): "You said it. They stink on ice."
  • Impoverished Paris Street Merchant (Jack Carter): "Rats, rats for sale. Get your rats. Good for rat stew, rat soup, or the ever-popular ratatouille."
  • Other Street Merchant:"Nothing, I have absolutely nothing for sale!"
  • King Louis XVI [prior to his arrest]: "It's good to be the king. (Also used in Robin Hood- Men In Tights and The Producers [Musical])"
  • Tomás de Torquemada: "It's better to lose your skullcap than your skull."
  • Moses (Mel Brooks): "God has given us these fifteen- (after dropping one of the tablets) ten-ten commandments!"

[edit] Spaceballs

  • Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis): "I see your schwartz is as big as mine."
  • Radar Officer (Michael Winslow): "I've lost the sweeps, the bleeps, and the creeps!" [Explains via vocal sound effects]
    Dark Helmet [aside to Colonel Sandurz]: "That's not all he's lost."
  • Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis): "What? You went over my helmet?"
  • President Skroob (Mel Brooks): "What the hell, it works on Star Trek!"
  • Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis): "What's the matter Colonel Sandurz... chicken?!"
  • Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis): "I knew it, I'm surrounded by assholes." (This follows everyone on the bridge announcing that their last name is "Asshole.")

[edit] Robin Hood: Men in Tights

  • Ahchoo (Dave Chappelle): "Man, white men can't jump!!"
  • King Richard (Patrick Stewart): "From this day forward, all toilets in this kingdom shall be known as...'John's'!"
  • Little John: "Let's face it - you've got to be a man to wear tights!"
  • Man In Front of Castle: "Hey Abbot!"
  • Townspeople: A black sherriff?
    Ahchoo: Why not? It worked in Blazing Saddles.
  • Robin Hood: Watch my back!
    Achoo: Yo' back just got punched twice.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links and references


Films Directed by Mel Brooks
The Producers | The Twelve Chairs | Young Frankenstein | Blazing Saddles | Silent Movie | High Anxiety
History of the World, Part I | Spaceballs | Life Stinks | Robin Hood: Men in Tights | Dracula: Dead and Loving It
da:Mel Brooks

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