Mel Brooks was born in 1926 in Brooklyn and raised in a Jewish family. After serving in World War 2, he began working as a musician and comedian in the Catskill Mountains. In the 1950s, he began writing for television shows. He found great success on Broadway and in film with comedies that spoofed popular genres, including The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Spaceballs. Brooks continued working into his 90s, adapting his early films into musicals like The Producers. He drew inspiration from the composers, actors, and films of the 1930s-1940s.

1. Mel Brooks
{ His Life and Work

2. Early Life
{ 1926-1950

3. Born Melvin James Kaminsky,
June 28, 1926.
He was raised in Brooklyn in a
family of Russian Jews.

4. In 1944, Melvin graduated from high
school and was drafted into the
army.
He received training at Virginia
Military Institute in Lexington, VA.

5. Corporal Kaminsky served in the
1104th Engineer Combat Group.
His main job was to deactivate
enemy land mines.

6. ‚War isn’t hell. War is loud. Much too noisy. All those
shells and bombs going off all around you. Never mind
death. A man could lose his hearing. ‚
– Mel Brooks

7. After the war, Kaminsky began working as a
musician and comic in the ‚Borscht Belt‛ --a
series of resorts in the Catskill Mountains
frequented by New York Jews.
The rapid-fire delivery
and self-deprecating
jokes of Borscht Belt
humor are trademarks
of Mel Brooks’ style.

8. To avoid being
confused with
Borscht Belt trumpet
player Max
Kaminsky, Melvin
changed his stage
name…
…to Mel Brooks.

9. TV and Film
{ 1950-1995

10. Brooks found his
next opportunity in
the burgeoning
medium of
television.
Sid Caesar as
Professor Von
Hoffmeyer, a
character he In 1950, he was
created for
Your Show of
hired as one of five
Shows. writers for Sid
http://www.yo
utube.com/wat Caeser’s Your Show
ch?v=y4neJKJb
uvI of Shows.

11. Also writing for Your Show of Shows was Carl
Reiner, and with him Brooks created ‚the 2000
year old man.‛ This was performed on albums
and various TV shows.
The 2000 Year Old Man on Shakespeare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1tosm
25OOE

12. In 1964, Brooks married actress Anne Bancroft.

13. She died of uterine cancer in 2005.
‚I had 45 of the greatest years of my life.‛
--Mel Brooks

14. In 1965, Brooks co-created the hit TV
series, Get Smart, about bumbling secret agent
Maxwell Smart.
Get Smart ‚The Cone of
Opening Silence‛:
Sequence: http://www.youtu
http://www.youtu be.com/watch?v=H
be.com/watch?v= WtPPWi6OMQ
Kv3kcnI72Ec

15. For years, Brooks had
wanted to do a musical
featuring Adolph
Hitler.
‚Springtime
for Hitler‛:
In 1968, he turned this
http://www.y idea into his first full
outube.com/
watch?v=ovC
length motion picture,
f9VRLnDY The Producers.
Mel Brooks wins
The movie became an Oscar:
underground smash hit http://www.youtub
e.com/watch?v=Tc
and won the Oscar for nSXEvzULk
Best Screenplay.

16. Brook’s next film The Twelve Chairs (1970)
flopped.
In 1972, Brooks was hired as a script doctor for
the movie that would become…

17. Blazing Saddles (1974)
Blazing Saddles Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=1V1c1yCQI5A
Brooks co-wrote the songs for the film,
including the Oscar-winning theme song.

18. Next, Brooks and Gene Wilder wrote and
filmed Young Frankenstein (1974).
Young Frankenstein
Trailer:
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
mOPTriLG5cU
The film was a spoof of classic horror movies
and film noir and (at Brooks’ insistence) was
shot in black and white.

19. Interviewer: When did it first occur to you that
Frankenstein was funny?
I was in the middle of shooting the last few
weeks of "Blazing Saddles" somewhere in
the Antelope Valley, and Gene Wilder and I
were having a cup of coffee and he said, I
have this idea that there could be another
"Frankenstein." I said not another – we've
had the son of, the cousin of, the brother-
in-law, we don't need another
Frankenstein. His idea was very simple:
What if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein
wanted nothing to do with the family
whatsoever. He was ashamed of those
wackos. I said, "That's funny."

20. Young Frankenstein was both financially and
critically successful. Brooks has called it his
favorite of all his films.
Brooks explains how he dealt with
laughter on the set during takes:
‚I bought 200 [white handkerchiefs]. I said,
‘If you’re not in the scene, take this
handkerchief, and when you feel you’re
going to laugh, shove this in your mouth.’
And every once in a while, I’d be shooting a
scene and I would turn, and I could see a
sea of white handkerchiefs. So I said, ‘Okay,
this is going to be funny. This is good.’ ‚

21. Brooks’ next two hits were Silent Movie (1976)
and High Anxiety (1977).
Silent Movie was a High Anxiety was a
full-length silent film. spoof of the films of
Alfred Hitchcock.
Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph6GIWOCiO8
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsJE8sYoe0E
Brooks starred as
film director Mel Brooks starred as
Funn. Dr. Thorndyke.

22. In 1980, Siskel & Ebert named ‚the two most
successful comedy directors in the world
today... America's two funniest filmmakers.‛
Woody Allen Mel Brooks

23. After producing a few dramatic films with his
company Brooksfilms, Brooks returned to
comedy with his spoof of historical
dramas, History of the World Part 1 (1981).
History of the World Part 1 Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDf5IkKAv-s

24. In 1982, Brooks produced and starred in a
remake of the 1942 film To Be Or Not To Be.
The Hitler Rap:
http://www.yout
ube.com/watch?
v=yu2NqfISm9k
Included on the film soundtrack (though not in
the film) was ‚To Be Or Not to Be‛ (The Hitler
Rap)‛ with Brooks playing Hitler. The song
became a hit, reaching No. 12 on UK charts.

25. 1987 brought Spaceballs, Brooks’ spoof of Star
Wars and other space movies.
Spaceballs Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JaJG1fXHpM

26. Next came Life Stinks (1991).
Life Stinks
Trailer:
http://www.yout
ube.com/watch?v
=KJWCNcAjSEo
Brooks played a tycoon who makes a bet he
can survive on the streets for 30 days.

27. Then, Robin Hood: Men In Tights (1993).
Men In Tights
Trailer:
http://www.you
tube.com/watch
?v=dX4Ik-cyp-I
Brooks spoofed all Robin Hoods, but notably
1991’s Prince of Thieves. For the film, Brooks
borrowed material from his short-lived 1975
TV series When Things Were Rotten.

28. And in 1995, Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
Dead & Loving It
Trailer:
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=c
7Dogj5c9pg
The film starred Leslie Nielsen as Count
Dracula, and is a send up of vampire films. It is
the last movie that Mel Brooks has directed to
date.

29. Broadway
{ 2001-Today

30. Just when his career seemed to be losing
momentum, Brooks took Broadway by storm
in 2001, when he adapted his 1968 film The
Producers for the stage.
The Producers at the Tony Awards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGMkCw858eE

31. Starring Nathan Lane and Matthew
Broderick, the show won 12 Tony awards
including Best Musical, and Best Original Score
written by Brooks himself.
In 2005, Brooks
turned the
musical into a
film.
The Producers
Trailer:
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
VzF4N0StVes

32. Music was always a
part of Brooks’ life
from his childhood.
He learned to play
drums at age 10, and
later piano. Before he
did a comic act in the
Borscht Belt, Brooks
worked as a musician.

33. Interviewer: Who were your musical
influences?
Louis Armstrong:
Brooks: http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=Y
The radio was a big influence. Big tElKZHRISg
Bands. Small groups at first,
emanating from Dixieland to Louie
Armstrong. I was only three or four, Glenn Miller:
but I was bouncing around like crazy http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=bfKpB
listening to that stuff and my mother O7eHG8
couldn't keep me down. Then when
the Big Bands came in the 1930s,
everything from Benny Goodman to
Glenn Miller. Artie Shaw was my
Artie Shaw:
absolute favorite. http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
V8xFOm3pdoM

34. ‚As far as songwriters, I've always been a fan of
Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin;
those guys mean a lot to me.‛
Irving Berlin: Cole Porter:
George Gershwin:
http://www.youtube. http://www.youtube.co
http://www.youtube.com/
com/watch?v=WOYz m/watch?v=qo6lPifGnG
watch?v=4Rck21wqYfg
FKizikU A (featuring YF’s Inga)

35. Brooks recalls what it was like adapting The
Producers:
"David Geffen kept
calling and calling me,
saying, 'The Producers' is
a natural and Jerry
Herman will do the score.' "Anne did have a lot to do with
Herman called Geffen and [my writing music] and it started
told him, 'Brooks is a all the way back with 'The 12
musician. He's into Chairs.' I said, 'I need a theme
Gershwin. Use Mel song for the movie,' and she said,
Brooks.' And we did it.‚ 'Go into the attic and write it and
don't come down until you have
it.' So I wrote it in four hours and
then I got to come down from the
attic."

36. Brooks credits his wife Anne with giving him
the inspiration to musicalize The Producers. She
would also help him with his next project, a
Broadway adaptation of Young Frankenstein.
Clips from Young Frankenstein: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOo6HCPJqZU

37. For Young Frankenstein, Brooks re-teamed with
Producers co-playwright Thomas Meehan. The
first draft of their script was performed in a
reading in October 2006.
The reading was directed by Susan Stroman, and featured
Brian d'Arcy James as Dr. Frankenstein, Kristin Chenoweth as
Elizabeth, Sutton Foster as Inga, Roger Bart as Igor, Marc
Kudisch as Inspector Kemp, Shuler Hensley as the Monster, and
Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher (reprising her 1974 film role).

38. Though many of the reading’s cast were
rumored to make the jump to Broadway, some
had to back out due to other commitments.
When the show began out-of-town tryouts in Seattle in August
2007, the cast had been set: Roger Bart as Frankenstein, Megan
Mullally as Elizabeth, Christopher Fitzgerald as Igor, Sutton
Foster as Inga, Andrea Martin as Frau Blucher, Shuler Hensley
as The Monster, and Fred Applegate as Inspector Kemp.

39. Young Frankenstein opened on Broadway on
November 8, 2007 at the Hilton Theatre on
West 42nd Street.
The show was directed and choreographed by
Susan Stroman and once again Brooks wrote
both music and lyrics. His wife Anne would not
live to see the project finished.

40. The show met with mixed reviews…
‚…an overblown burlesque
revue, right down to its giggly "DELIGHTFULLY NUTTY!
smuttiness ... Mr. Brooks’s songs GLITTERING, BUOYANT FUN
have a throwaway quality, as if that TICKLES ITS AUDIENCE
they were dashed off on the day INTO HIGH SPIRITS. CLASSIC
of the performance.‛ –The New BROOKS!" --Los Angeles Times
York Times
"With EYE-POPPING ‚You cannot escape the impression
scenery, PRAISEWORTHY that everyone is working desperately
performances, INSPIRED hard to animate essentially weak
choreography and DEVILISHLY material, and the show fatally lacks
acrobatic dances…It gives any that touch of the sublime that made
horror flick's special effects a run The Producers so special.‛ –The Daily
for the money." --Bloomberg News Telegraph
…but was popular with audiences and didn’t
close until January 2009.

41. While it was nominated for a few Tonys
(including scenic design and featured
actor/actress for Christopher Fitzgerald and
Andrea Martin), Young Frankenstein would win
none. It did win the Outer Critics Circle Award
for Best Musical.

42. One of the show’s iconic and thrilling moments
is the spectacular rendition of Irving Berlin’s
1929 hit ‚Puttin’ On the Ritz.‛
Bart & Hensley perform Fred Astaire performs ‚Puttin’ On the
‚Puttin’ On the Rtiz‛: Ritz‛ in Blue Skies (1946).
http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=Gc_5YyWgRas
Before its insertion into Young Frankenstein, the
song was most closely associated with Mel
Brooks’ favorite actor: Fred Astaire.

43. Just as the music of the 1930’s influenced
Brooks’ work, so too did the films of the era.
http://www.yo
utube.com/wat
When Melvin Kaminsky was ch?v=akD7r3P
only a boy, Hollywood was in ClRc
a heyday of comedy, glamor,
^Fred Astaire
and music. Some of the best performing his
composers in America had iconic ‚Top
begun writing for films, Hat, White
Tie, & Tails‛
including Irving Berlin, from what
George & Ira Gershwin, Brooks has
Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, called his
favorite
Johnny Mercer and more. movie, Top Hat
(1935).
And they all wrote for Fred
Music & Lyrics
Astaire. by: Irving
Berlin

44. One of the biggest films of Audiences in the 1930’s There was also the thrill
the 1930’s was It Happened escaped into the romance of of melodramatic and
One Night (1934) starring operettas with ‚America’s spectacular horror
Clark Gable and Claudette Singing Sweethearts,‛ films, like 1931’s Dracula:
Colbert. The final (sexually Jeannette Macdonald & http://www.youtube.co
charged) gag of this scene Nelson Eddy. One of their m/watch?v=7Nfmh178L9
could have been written by biggest hits was ‚Indian Love 8
Brooks himself. Call‛ from Rose Marie (1936):
http://www.youtube.com/ http://www.youtube.com/wat
watch?v=_wHfSb2xz2M ch?v=GaQX9YuFaj0

45. Also at large in 1930’s films were The Marx Brothers.
These one-of-a-kind comedians utilized wise cracks,
zany jokes, slapstick, and Vaudeville-style caricatures.
There is no doubt that they contributed greatly to
Brooks’ style.
‚Swordfish‛ from Horse
Feathers (1932):
http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=W50L4UPfWsg
Marx Brothers Montage
(some of these sequences
could have come right
out of a Mel Brooks
movie):
http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=rIUsnuXJydA

46. When creating musicals, Brooks naturally
gravitates towards the old Hollywood style
that he loves.
Just compare ‚That …with any of Fred
Face‛ from The Astaire and Ginger
Producers… Rogers’ great
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an- routines.
6sxl4tm2YhbJmm/the_producers_2005_bl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T
oom_and_ulla_dance/ -lshXApIJs

47. Or this scene in …with this classic
Men In Tights… Nelson Eddy serenade.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_9feu
hTZdSquKl8 _9SSo

48. Young Frankenstein was directly influenced by the
smash-hit film adaptation of Frankenstein in 1931, and
its many sequels in the 1930’s including Bride of
Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939).
Frankenstein (1931):
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935): Son of Frankenstein (1939):
http://www.youtube.c
http://www.youtube.com/watch? http://www.youtube.com/
om/watch?v=8H3dFh6
v=8H3dFh6GA-A watch?v=iMzbgLftYro
GA-A

49. Young Frankenstein had
two successful national
tours—the first 2009-
2010 and the second
2011-2012.
VIDEOS:
• Recording the Cast Album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJy7M_CdSEQ
• Director-Choreographer Susan Stroman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uza4PzrP7KQ
• Young Frankenstein Alive! on Broadway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqFQ3Of5oGE,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjrgMOHHlM4 ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgRXfUmg9jc,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50_WNkEcVR4,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhzLvmZrVhM

50. Legacy
{ An American Icon

51. Today, at age 86, In 2009, Brooks was
granted a Kennedy
Brooks can boast an Center Honor, and in
Oscar, several Tonys, a 2010 he received the
few Emmys and a few 2,406th star on the
Grammys. Hollywood Walk of
Fame.
Three of Brooks‘s films are
on the American Film In June 2013, Brooks will
Institute's list of Funniest be presented with the
American Films: Blazing American Film
Saddles (#6), The Producers Institute’s Life
(#11), and Young Achievement Award.
Frankenstein (#13).

52. Interviewer: Are you writing the
Rumors abound that "Blazing Saddles" musical?
Brooks’ is currently
‚I'm toying with it. I don't know
adapting Blazing Saddles whether or not it's a good thing. I know
for the stage. There has I'll walk into a storm of criticism,
especially in New York. The Broadway
also been chatter by guys will say, ‘What? Another movie
Brooks about adapting Get and another.... How many movies has he
Smart as a stage musical. done? Do we have to suffer through a
dozen?’ I could write the reviews.‛

53. ‚If you're alive you've
got to flap your arms
and legs, you've got to
jump around a lot, for
life is the very opposite
of death, and therefore
you must at very least
think noisy and
colorfully, or you're not
alive.‛
‚If Shaw and Einstein
couldn't beat death,
what chance have I got?
Practically none.‛

54. Mel Brooks
1926-Today