It's Good to Be the King

by James Robert Parish

  Such increasingly smart-alecky shenanigans in the classroom made the other youngsters laugh at Melvin’s audacity. It gave him newfound respect of sorts with his mates for being a rebel against the academic Establishment. However, in the 1930s, when mild corporal punishment was an accepted method of dealing with student misbehavior, Kaminsky received a healthy share of physical rebukes. Decades later, he’d recall such reprimands from his teachers with a tinge of pride (and, perhaps, a bit of exaggeration). “The class would laugh and I’d get hit. But by then I’d be laughing so hard I couldn’t stop. Slapped, grabbed by the hair, dragged to the principal’s office, couldn’t stop laughing. Hit by the principal, kicked down the stairs, bleeding in the gutter, couldn’t stop laughing.”

  • • •

  During these early formative years, Melvin found himself falling in love with the movies, an entertainment art form that had largely switched from silents to talkies in the years just after Kaminsky’s birth in 1926. As a tyke, Melvin had joined family members on occasional excursions to Coney Island: “We’d go there, and we’d get a frankfurter, a root beer and a boiled-to-death ear of corn at Feldman’s, which was before Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs. In the back, they had a silent movie theater [where the admission was free or next-to-nothing if one bought food up front]. The screen was just a white sheet. They had this flickering machine. That was the first time I saw this angel with a white face and these beautiful eyes. I knew this was something special. It was the first time I saw [comedian Buster] Keaton. He wore a flat pancake of a hat, and I just couldn’t believe the man’s grace.”

  For Melvin, watching these silent pictures was love at first sight. This special enjoyment expanded over the next years: “I never cared about religion, but I prayed to silent movies. It was my contact with things soulful. I’d go there as often as I could. I’d sneak in, actually and watch the movie without buying the frankfurter or the knish.”

  By the time the boy was five, he was joining friends for a visit to the Marcy Theater, a small Williamsburg cinema where they showed talkies. He paid the small admission price with pennies his doting mother scraped together for him. One of his most memorable outings was seeing Frankenstein, the horror film starring Boris Karloff. It was first released in late 1931 and, thereafter, was a popular item in reruns, especially for children’s matinees.

  The James Whale-directed feature made a stunning impression on the future filmmaker. “I had a recurring dream that he [i.e., Frankenstein’s monster] was climbing up my fire escape. Now, I never really analyzed why Boris Karloff, or why the monster, would pick 365 South Third Street in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn to climb that particular tenement fire escape. Or why he would stop at apartment 5-B and try to get into my bedroom. I never figured that out. But I knew for sure he was after me.… And that’s one of the reasons I made Young Frankenstein [1974], I said, I don’t want this dream anymore. I want him to be a friendly guy. I want to exorcise this dybbuk, this devil, from my system.”

  Despite his alarming dream, Melvin, being a prankster who exerted his imagination to uncover the funny side of most everything in life, was able to translate the nightmare-inducing experience of Frankenstein into his own brand of comedy. At the time, one of his closest school chums was Eugene Cohen. Kaminsky could launch his loyal pal into hysterics just by singing the Irving Berlin song “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in the manner of Boris Karloff. “It got so bad that… [Eugene] couldn’t hear that song near a window, because he might roll out and fall to his death. I would start to sing and he would collapse. He would have to be dragged to the principal’s office by his feet, with his head banging on the step, still laughing.”

  • • •

  Besides moviegoing, Melvin had another entertainment passion. It was the radio, which brought free, wonderfully varied diversions right into one’s own home. One of his mother’s—and his grandparents’—favorite shows was The Yiddish Philosopher. On this offering, the program’s lead player made all sorts of pronouncements on a variety of topics—much in the manner of Melvin’s own grandfather Samuel Kaminsky. (Said Brooks, “It was a way of talking that certain Jews his age had. He offered an expert opinion on any subject, as if he was [the great German philosopher Arthur] Schopenhauer.”)

  A particularly popular radio entry with Melvin—especially after he learned about his mother’s girlhood connection to the star—was Eddie Cantors weekly comedy program. “It was very important to me,” the budding entertainer noted years later. “Very influential on my work. Along with his timing was his particular delivery. He took his time, didn’t rush. There was nobody like Eddie Cantor, that’s why he was great.” According to Melvin, listening week after week to The Eddie Cantor Show taught him a useful gambit that would come in handy decades later when he was directing film and TV projects where he needed to mesh the cast into a harmonious troupe. “The sketches were fast and furious—and Cantor was great at supporting the other guy in the sketch. He had a special genius for starring his featured players—and then supporting them. You might think the other guy was getting the laugh, but it was Cantor who was making it all work for me.”

  • • •

  Of all Melvin’s relatives he was most encouraged by his mother’s brother, Joe. Like Kitty Kaminsky, Joe was very short of stature (scarcely five feet tall). As such, when he was at work driving a taxi he had to sit on a pile of phone books so he could see over the steering wheel, and he had to rely on specially constructed gas and clutch pedals for his feet to reach them.

  Through his cabbie work in and about Brooklyn, the congenial Uncle Joe was acquainted with a wide variety of doormen and concierges in the borough. These were the men who often got tickets to Broadway shows for the tenants in their fancy buildings. One Friday in 1935, Joe rushed over to the Kaminskys’ apartment with exciting news for his youngest nephew. He had done a favor for one of these doormen and, in appreciation, he had been handed two tickets for a Saturday matinee of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes. Joe announced that the next day he would take Melvin into Manhattan to see the hit show, which had debuted in November 1934. The two of them went to the Alvin Theater the next afternoon, and there from the balcony they watched and listened to Ethel Merman, William Gaxton, and the other cast members as they performed the musical comedy, which boasted such numbers as “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.” It was the youngster’s first encounter with a live professional stage show.

  This exciting theater outing was a monumental experience for young Melvin. “I had goose bumps. I almost fainted.… And oh, the glory of the sound that came from that orchestra pit, led by the brass section, those blaring trumpets and thrilling trombones reaching for the moon.” According to Brooks, “When the final curtain fell, I leaped to my feet and cheered my 9-year-old head off; way up there at the top of the balcony, I figured that I was as close to heaven as I’d ever get.” As the entertainer vividly recounted years later, “I began weeping, just couldn’t contain myself. I said, ‘When I get big, this is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna write for the theater. The real world stinks. This is the world I want to live in, the world of imagination.’” This decision prompted Mel to conclude that night as he lay awake, too excited to fall asleep, “Being a Broadway songwriter, I decided, would be even better than playing shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers, which up until then had been my most fantastic dream.”

  • • •

  Like many other adventurous youths of the time, Melvin went through a phase in which he snitched a few penny candies from the corner candy store. Everyone else seemed to do it, and he thought little about the possible consequences of his delinquency. Later, he and a pal or two developed the habit of hanging out at the local five-and-dime, where a short Filipino man was often present to demonstrate his virtuosity on a yo-yo and induce onlookers to buy the product. Kaminsky and company saw this as a golden occasional opportunity to fill their pockets with yo-yos when the demonstrator’s back was turned. Such p
etty thievery was undertaken several times without anyone’s seemingly noticing.

  One day, Melvin and an accomplice returned to the scene of their repeated crime. Suddenly, stealing yo-yos no longer held its once magical allure. As Kaminsky and his pal wandered up and down the aisles of the store’s game section, Melvin’s eyes fastened on a toy gun. Stealthily checking to see that the coast was clear, he maneuvered the toy weapon into his jacket pocket. Kaminsky and his accomplice began making their escape from the store. Suddenly, a voice said, “Halt!” The boys nervously turned around and found themselves staring into the piercing eyes of the irate store manager. He demanded the return of the stolen toy, promising dire consequences thereafter. Although his frightened friend stood thunderstruck, Melvin sprang into inspired action. Pulling the fake pistol from his pocket, he pointed the “weapon” in the direction of his accuser. Mimicking the manner of cinema gangsters (such as James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson) whom he’d seen many times on the screen, Kaminsky snarled, “Stand back or I’ll plug ya!” His astonished captor recoiled in apparent shock, and Melvin and his confederate used this opportunity to flee the store.

  On another occasion, Melvin and his favorite cohort, Eugene Cohen, snuck into the RKO Republic Theater on Keap Street, about a quarter of a mile from where the Kaminskys lived on South Third. In short order, the errant boys were apprehended by eagle-eyed ushers and escorted unceremoniously to the manager’s office. At first the young wrongdoers thought the situation was terribly funny. However, the manager quickly changed their mood when he announced ominously, “You have your choice. I could call the police or give you a beating.” While Cohen shouted, “The police,” Kaminsky simultaneously loudly opted for the beating. (Melvin feared having this misdeed go on his record and disgracing his family’s name.) Taken aback by the offenders’ conflicting choices of punishment, the manager decided to let the boisterous miscreants go, warning them never to do such a thing again.

  4

  Hello and Good-bye to Brighton Beach

  When I was a kid, I was very confused by what the Jew was in the outer world. I knew what he was in Williamsburg. He was a runner and a rat and scared as hell. But Jews in the outside world I heard different, conflicting things about. First of all I heard they were the communists, overthrowing all the governments in the world. When I was in high school, I thought a Jew’s job in life was to throw over every government. The other thing I heard was the Jews were capitalists and had all the gold and the banks and that the Jews’ job was to kill all the socialists and the radicals. So I never really figured out what the Jewish mission was. Should I kill the capitalists and take all their money? No, I’d be killing Jews. Should I stamp out the radicals so that we could keep our money? No, I’d be killing Jews. Very confusing.

  –Mel Brooks, 1975

  Not too long after Melvins bar mitzvah in mid-1939, the family relocated to Brighton Beach, an area adjacent to Coney Island made famous in Neil Simon’s 1980s’ Broadway play Brighton Beach Memoirs, which was later made into a movie. The Kaminskys’ new community was approximately 15 miles away from Williamsburg, but it felt to the adolescent as if he was very much a stranger in a strange land. He missed his old pals and the familiar landmarks in which he had grown up.

  The immediate advantages of the move were that the Kaminsky clan now lived much closer to the ocean and its cooling breezes. Then too, residing in Brighton Beach placed Melvin in far closer proximity to his beloved Coney Island and all the wonders that its boardwalks, amusement park, food stands, and beach held for him.

  It was while living in Brighton Beach that Melvin matriculated at Abraham Lincoln High School. There the smart-mouthed young man made a new set of friends. One of them was Mickey Rich, who lived down the street from the Kaminskys. One afternoon Melvin and another recently acquired pal, Billy, stopped by the Riches’ home. In the course of the visit, Melvin noticed a set of drums in one of the rooms. Mickey, the son of veteran vaudevillians, explained that the instruments belonged to his older brother, Bernard. With Melvin’s love of music, it was not long before he—uninvited—began tinkering with a snare drum. He liked the attention-getting sounds it made. As he tinkered with the instrument, Mickey’s older brother happened to come home. Bernard stood in the doorway listening to the visitor’s attempt at percussion playing. “Not good. But not too bad,” he judged.

  Looking first at Bernard and then at the drum set, which bore the logo “A.S. B.R.,” Melvin quickly figured out who this drummer was. He was the talented Buddy Rich, who was then employed in the band of one of Melvin’s musical favorites (Artie Shaw), and who would soon be joining Tommy Dorsey’s famous group. (Rich was also billed, for some time, as the greatest drummer in the world.) Melvin expressed his great enthusiasm for Shaw’s band, and, in particular, for Buddy’s remarkable percussion work. One thing led to another, and soon the good-natured Buddy suggested that Melvin drop by on weekends and, if Rich was not on the road with Shaw’s band, he would give him drumming lessons.

  Melvin was ecstatic at this fortuitous turn of events. Over the next several months, whenever he learned that Buddy was home, he would come by the Riches’ for a free drumming session. With the boy’s innate sense of rhythm, he was soon mastering the basic licks. (He was elated to realize that with his enthusiastic, loud drum playing he now had an option for holding people’s attention other than just his patter of jokes and stories.) Weeks later, Buddy kindly arranged with Artie Shaw for Melvin to attend some of the band’s recording sessions in Manhattan. Kaminsky would sit very quietly in the studio watching, listening, and thrilling at his brush with musical greats. It was another memorable event in his life to date. (Several years later when Melvin, now established in the entertainment field, encountered Artie Shaw, he talked enthusiastically and reverently with the band leader of those long-ago halcyon days.)

  Being a very practical soul, Mrs. Kaminsky did not share her beloved youngest son’s enthusiasm for show business—let alone his growing penchant for drumming. (Eventually, Melvin wangled a set of drums for himself and his constant, noisy practicing nearly drove her to distraction.) To his mother, Mel’s banging away was a lot of crazy, useless noise that would lead nowhere, certainly not provide her last-born with a useful career. Her three eldest boys had all proved to be diligent students, who, between their work at the knitting mills and in other jobs, still found the time and energy to complete high school. They even went on to college (albeit night classes). In fact, Irving would become a chemist, a fact that made Kitty Kaminsky very proud.

  However, the self-willed Melvin was another story. He just could not, or would not, settle down in the classrooms, and his poor grades reflected his continued lack of interest in the curriculum. Even on those rare occasions when he applied himself to academics, he demonstrated that, unlike his siblings, he had no real aptitude for math. This failing soon ruled out Melvin’s occasional thoughts of doing something “sensible” with his life, like becoming a chemist, or even something more exciting, such as a pilot.

  • • •

  Despite her family’s improved living situation in less crowded, less rundown Brighton Beach, Kitty greatly missed the old neighborhood—especially her dear friends from the ghetto. So a year or so after they had left Williamsburg, the Kaminskys returned to their former Brooklyn neighborhood. Their new address was 111 Lee Avenue, a five-story brick building located a bit north of Hooper Street and less than three-quarters of a mile from their old residence on South 3rd Street.

  By now, Kitty was fully convinced that something must be done—at once—to put Melvin on the right, practical path to ensure his future. Her decision was that the boy should go to the Harren High School of Aviation Trade, where he could, God willing, learn a practical craft as an airplane mechanic. When his older brother Irving heard of this, he put his foot down. He insisted that Melvin should and would go to regular high school like the rest of the Kaminsky boys had done and that, later, he would go on to college. Irving had a great belief
in Melvin’s intelligence, even if, so far, the undisciplined teenager had been a conspicuously poor student. Eventually, Mrs. Kaminsky acceded to Irving’s demand.

  So instead of going to a trade school, Melvin transferred to Brooklyn’s Eastern District High School, which was situated several blocks from the Kaminskys’ Lee Avenue apartment. However, old habits stuck with Melvin in his new environment: he remained an unrepentant poor student and a dedicated classroom clown. He just would not (or could not) take academics seriously, and most of his teachers concluded that this persistent troublemaker did not have a bright future. One exception was Mr. Rubenstein, his French teacher. Although Melvin was failing the language class, the instructor was impressed by his “impeccable accent” and thought that, with application, Kaminsky could actually make something of himself. (Many years later, the world-famous comedian and filmmaker would characterize this classroom mentor as “my first fan.”)

  If Melvin, now 14, did not have a reputation as a scholar in high school, he had further cemented his standing on neighborhood street corners in front of the local drug store or candy shop. According to his Eastern District classmate Mark Nelson, Melvin “was always on. Mel really commanded an audience. He mesmerized all the boys. But it was only the boys, the girls never paid him much attention.… He always had a great wit. He was funny in his way and I in mine and we’d always try and outwit each other.… We’d hang out at the candy store on Lott Street. Sometimes we’d talk about the girls we never could date.… We tried making time with women—but we both struck out.”