Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks, born Melvin James Kaminsky on June 28, 1926, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, songwriter, and Broadway performer and book writer whose career spans more than seven decades. He grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the youngest of four brothers, and lost his father to tuberculosis of the kidney when Brooks was just two years old. At age nine, a visit to the Alvin Theater to see Anything Goes with William Gaxton, Ethel Merman, and Victor Moore convinced him to pursue show business rather than work in the garment district. By age fourteen, he had taken up drumming under the instruction of Buddy Rich and found employment as a poolside entertainer at a Borscht Belt hotel, where he first encountered Sid Caesar. He adopted the surname Brooks, drawn from his mother's maiden name Brookman, to distinguish himself from trumpeter Max Kaminsky. Brooks graduated from Eastern District High School in Williamsburg in January 1944.

Following his graduation, Brooks was drafted into the United States Army. He trained at the Army Specialized Training Program at the Virginia Military Institute before being sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for basic and radio operator training. He served with the 78th Infantry Division as a forward artillery observer and was later transferred to the 1104th Engineer Combat Battalion, participating in the Battle of the Bulge. His unit cleared booby-trapped buildings, defused land mines, and constructed the first Bailey bridge over the Roer River, later building bridges over the Rhine. In April 1945, his unit conducted its final reconnaissance missions in the Harz Mountains. With the war in Europe concluded, Brooks joined Special Services as a touring comic at Army bases and was honorably discharged as a corporal in June 1946.

Brooks launched his professional entertainment career working Borscht Belt resorts as a drummer, pianist, and stand-up comic before securing a writing position on Sid Caesar's television variety program Your Show of Shows, which ran from 1950 to 1954. On that writing staff he worked alongside Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart, and Carl Reiner. With Reiner, Brooks co-created the comedy sketch "The 2000 Year Old Man," which led to a series of comedy albums beginning with 2000 Year Old Man in 1960. He received five Grammy Award nominations for Best Comedy Album before winning the award in 1999. Together with Buck Henry, Brooks co-created the satirical NBC spy comedy series Get Smart, which ran from 1965 to 1970.

His transition to film brought further distinction. Brooks won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Producers in 1967 and subsequently directed a succession of successful comedy films, including The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Silent Movie (1976), High Anxiety (1977), History of the World, Part I (1981), Spaceballs (1987), Life Stinks (1991), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). The American Film Institute ranked three of his films among the best comedies of the twentieth century. In 2023, he wrote and produced the Hulu series History of the World, Part II.

Brooks's Broadway career encompasses both performing and writing. He appeared in Shinbone Alley and All American, and later starred in Mel Brooks on Broadway. His most celebrated stage achievement came with the musical adaptation of The Producers, which ran on Broadway from 2001 to 2007. For that production, Brooks received three Tony Awards in 2001: Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score. A film adaptation of the stage musical followed in 2005. Brooks also appeared in The Producers on Broadway, extending his involvement in the production beyond its authorship.

Among his many honors, Brooks is one of only twenty-eight entertainers to have achieved EGOT status, holding an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2013, a British Film Institute Fellowship in 2015, the National Medal of Arts in 2016, a BAFTA Fellowship in 2017, and an Honorary Academy Award in 2024. Brooks was married to actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005; their son Max Brooks is an actor and author. Brooks published the memoir All About Me! in 2021.