Brooks, Mel, 1927–, American film director, writer, actor, and producer, b. New York City as Melvin Kaminsky. His earliest work was in television, notably as a gag writer for Sid Caesar Caesar, Sid, 1922–, American comedian, one of the stars of the 1950s "golden age of live television," b. Yonkers, N.Y. While performing in a World War II military show he met the producer Max Liebman who, impressed with Caesar's comic abilities, later sponsored
..... Click the link for more information. 's "Your Show of Shows" (1950–54). He also scored a hit with a 1964 comedy recording, in which he played an irascible, Yiddish-accented 2,000-year-old man. Turning to film, he wrote and directed The Producers (1968), a comic masterpiece of uproarious bad taste. His other hit comedies are usually wild parodies that mix satire with slapstick; they include Blazing Saddles (1974), a spoof of Western movies; Young Frankenstein (1975), a Brooksian take on the horror genre, and High Anxiety (1977), a comic version of Alfred Hitchcock Hitchcock, Sir Alfred, 1899–1980, English-American film director, writer, and producer, b. London. Hitchcock began his career as a director in 1925 and became prominent with The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938).
..... Click the link for more information. 's spine-tinglers. Among his later movies, which have been less successful with the public, are To Be or Not To Be (1983), Life Stinks (1991), and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). Brooks turned to the stage in 2001, adapting his first film hit, The Producers, into a smash hit, Tony-winning Broadway musical (film, 2005).

Bibliography

See N. Smurthwaite and P. Gelder, Mel Brooks and the Spoof Movie (1982); M. Yakowar, In Method Madness: The Comic Art of Mel Brooks (1982); N. Sinyard, The Films of Mel Brooks (1987).

Brooks, Mel

orig. Melvin Kaminsky

(born June 28, 1926, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. director, producer, and actor. He wrote comedy routines for Sid Caesar's television shows (1949–59) and cocreated the TV series Get Smart (1965). He wrote and directed his first feature film, The Producers (1968, Academy Award for writing), which was later transformed into a hit Broadway musical. He directed, produced, and cowrote (and sometimes acted in) film comedies such as Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), and Spaceballs (1987).