It's Good to Be the King

by James Robert Parish

  If mere survival for decades in the highly competitive entertainment industry—a forum increasingly monopolized by the young—isn’t enough of an accomplishment on its own, Brooks enjoyed the comeback of comebacks when he spearheaded the creation of the Broadway musical version of The Producers in 2001.

  According to Mel: “It’s always been very important to me that I was not only funny, but that I was either the funniest person in the world, or one of the funnier people in the world.… I have never been really out of vogue because funny is funny. I will always be in vogue. I can always spot the insane of the bizarre in the commonplace. That’s my job.” As for Brooks’s lifelong ambition to chisel his mark on the world, he has said, “You can win a conditional victory, I think [against death]. It all boils down to scratching your name in the bark of the tree. I was here. When you do that—whatever tree you carve it in—you’re saying, ‘Now, there’s a record of me!’ I won’t be erased by death. Any man’s greatness is a tribute to the nobility of mankind, so when we celebrate the genius of Tolstoy, we say, ‘Look! One of our boys made it! Look what we’re capable of!’”

  Brooks’s incessant need for a bit of immortality has pushed him to “try to give my work everything I’ve got, because when you’re dead or you’re out of business or you’re in an old actors’ home somewhere, if you’ve done a good job, your work will still be 16 years old and dancing and healthy and pirouetting and arabesquing all over the place and they’ll say, ‘That’s who he is! He’s not this decaying skeleton.’” (Another time, the vivaciously zany man said, “I believe when you die you rot. So you know what I want when I die? Fill me with formaldehyde, stick me under a kitchen table, eat over me and talk, and just let me listen.”)

  The celebrated laughmaker has emphasized repeatedly, “I never want to leave the Mel Brooks business, and that business is to make noises that make sense and that make people laugh. Enjoy! Revel! Live! Have yourselves one sweetheart of a good time. That’s what my films are saying. That’s what they’re all about.”

  According to Mel, “I really get a kick out of making people feel good. There is no greater joy for me than to sit in the first row of a movie house showing one of my films and turn around. It’s not so much the laughter; it’s the glow of the faces in anticipation or just the silver light of the screen bathing over their faces. Success, money, they’re all by-products. Fame, the enemy is a by-product. It’s no good to be famous. It really doesn’t pay. People watching you, they don’t behave normally when you’re around, and your God-given gifts of observation are out the window. Whatever anonymity I have I cling to.”

  As for the future of the film business, in which he has participated for over half a century, Brooks has acknowledged, “The home-entertainment technology scares me more than anything because I want an audience to laugh at my movies. I want people to sit in a dark theatre, let the silver screen bathe them with images and have them laugh as a group. It’s thrilling to hear a lot of people laughing together. But with the direction of current technology, it seems we’ll have tiny little groups at home, or sometimes even one skinny person watching a big fat Mel Brooks movie. You can’t get a lot of laughs that way. I wasn’t born to make one thin person laugh; I was born to make a lot of fat and skinny people sit in the dark and laugh together.” (Once, when Mel Brooks was asked what he found to be the most difficult aspect about the filmmaking process, he amusingly responded, “Putting in the little holes. The sprocket holes are the hardest thing to make. Everything else is easy, but all night you have to sit with that little puncher and make the holes on the side of the film. You could faint from that work.”)

  • • •

  Mel Brooks, the venerated elder statesman of show business, who refuses to abandon his career no matter how many ups and downs he experiences in the process, has never forgotten the best advice anyone ever gave him. “I asked a 97-year-old who was still the busy guy in the herring business, ‘Mr. Horowitz, what’s your secret?’ He said, ‘Follow your nature, boy. Follow your nature.’”

  Mel Brooks’s Film, Stage, and Television Credits

  Feature Films*

  New Faces

  Twentieth Century-Fox, 1954, color, 98 minutes, no rating

  Producers: Edward L. Alperson and Berman Swarttz; director: Harry Horner; sketches: Melvin Brooks, John Cleveland, Luther Davis, Ronny Graham, and Paul Lynde, based on the Broadway revue Leonard Sillmans New Faces of 1952; camera: Lucien Ballard; editorial supervisor: Ace Herman

  Selected cast: Ronny Graham, Eartha Kitt, Robert Clary, Alice Ghostley, June Carroll, and Paul Lynde (themselves)

  The Producers

  Embassy, 1968, color, 88 minutes, rated PG

  Producer: Sidney Glazier; director/screenplay: Mel Brooks; original songs: Mel Brooks & John Morris; Norman Blagman; original music: John Morris; camera: Joseph Coffey; editor: Ralph Rosenblum

  Selected cast: Zero Mostel (Max Bialystock); Gene Wilder (Leo Bloom), Kenneth Mars (Franz Liebkind), Christopher Hewett (Roger De Bris), Lee Meredith (Ulla), Andreas Voutsinas (Carmen Ghia), Dick Shawn (Lorenzo St. DuBois), and Mel Brooks (voice of Nazi soldier in “Springtime for Hitler”)

  Putney Swope

  Cinema V, 1969, black and white/color, 84 minutes, rated B

  Producers: Robert Downey Sr. and Ron Sullivan; director/screenplay: Robert Downey Sr.; original music: Charles Cuva; cinematographer: Gerald Cotts; editor: Bud S. Smith

  Selected cast: Stanley Gottlieb (Nathan), Allen Garfield (Elias Jr.), Archie Russell (Joker), Ramon Gordon (Bissinger), Bert Lawrence (Hawker), Arnold Johnson (Putney Swope), David Kirk (Elias Sr.), Anthony Fargas (the Arab), Mel Brooks (Mr. Forget It), and Allan Arbus (Mr. Bad News)

  The Twelve Chairs

  UNC. 1970, color, 94 minutes, rated G

  Producer: Michael Hertzberg; screenplay: Mel Brooks, based on the novel The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov (Ilya Faynzilberg and Yevgeny Katayev) as translated by Elizabeth Hill and Doris Mudie as Diamonds to Sit On; original song: Mel Brooks; original music: John Morris; camera: Djordje Nikolic; editor: Alan Heim

  Selected cast: Ron Moody (Ippolit Vorobyaninov), Frank Langella (Ostap Bender), Dom DeLuise (Father Fyodor), Andreas Voutsinas (Nikolai Sestrin), Diana Coupland (Madame Bruns), and Mel Brooks (Tikon)

  Shinbone Alley

  Fine Arts Films, 1971, color, 85 minutes, rated PG

  Producers: Preston M. Fleet and John D. Wilson; director: John D. Wilson; screenplay: Joe Darion, based on the “archy and mehitabel” stories by Don Marquis and the Broadway musical (book by Joe Darion and Mel Brooks; lyrics by Joe Darion; music by George Kleinsinger); cinematographers: Ted C. Bemiller and Gene Borghi; editor: Warren Leighton

  Selected cast (voices of): Eddie Bracken (archy), Carol Channing (mehitabel), John Carradine (Tyrone T. Tattersall), Alan Reed (Big Bill), Ken Sansom (Newspaperman Byron Kane), and Hal Smith (Spiders and Insects)

  Blazing Saddles

  Warner Bros., 1974, color, 93 minutes, rated R

  Producer: Michael Hertzberg; director: Mel Brooks; screenplay: Mel Brooks & Norman Steinberg & Andrew Bergman & Richard Pryor & Alan Uger, based on the screen story by Andrew Bergman; original songs: Mel Brooks and John Morris; original music: John Morris; cinematographer: Joseph Biroc; editors: Danford Greene and John C. Howard

  Selected cast: Cleavon Little (Sheriff Bart), Gene Wilder (Jim, the Waco Kid), Slim Pickens (Taggart), Alex Karras (Mongo), Mel Brooks (Governor William J. LePetomane/Indian chief/World War I aviator in bad men lineup/voice of German dancer/voice of moviegoer); Harvey Korman (Hedley Lamarr), Madeline Kahn (Lili Von Shtupp), and Dom DeLuise (Buddy Bizarre)

  Young Frankenstein

  Twentieth Century-Fox, 1974, black and white, 106 minutes, rated PG

  Producer: Michael Gruskoff; director: Mel Brooks; screen story/screenplay: Mel Brooks & Gene Wilder, based on characters from the novel Frankenstein, or the Modem Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; original music: John Morris; cinematographer: Gerald H
irschfeld; editor: John C. Howard

  Selected cast: Gene Wilder (Dr. Frederick Frankenstein), Peter Boyle (the Monster), Marty Feldman (Igor), Madeline Kahn (Elizabeth), Cloris Leachman (Frau Blücher), Teri Garr (Inga), Kenneth Mars (Police Inspector Hans Wilhelm Friederich Kemp), Gene Hackman (the Blind Man), and Mel Brooks (voice of screeching cat/voice of werewolf)

  Silent Movie

  Twentieth Century-Fox, 1976, color, 87 minutes, rated PG

  Producer: Michael Hertzberg; director: Mel Brooks; screenplay: Mel Brooks & Ron Clark & Rudy DeLuca & Barry Levinson; screen story: Ron Clark; original music: John Morris; cinematographer: Paul Lohmann; editors: Stanford C. Allen and John C. Howard

  Selected cast: Mel Brooks (Mel Funn), Marty Feldman (Marty Eggs); Dom DeLuise (Dom Bell); Sid Caesar (Studio Chief); Harold Gould (Engulf); Ron Carey (Devour); Bernadette Peters (Vilma Kaplan); and Anne Bancroft, Liza Minnelli, Paul Newman, Marcel Marceau, and Burt Reynolds (guest stars)

  High Anxiety

  Twentieth Century-Fox, 1977, color, 94 minutes, rated Pfi

  Producer/director: Mel Brooks; screenplay: Mel Brooks & Ron Clark & Rudy DeLuca & Barry Levinson; original songs: Mel Brooks; original music: John Morris; cinematographer: Paul Lohmann; editor: John C. Howard

  Selected cast: Mel Brooks (Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke), Madeline Kahn (Victoria Brisbane), Cloris Leachman (Nurse Charlotte Diesel), Harvey Korman (Dr. Charles Montague), Ron Carey (Brophy), Howard Morris (Professor Lilloman), and Dick Van Patten (Dr. Philip Wentworth)

  The Muppet Movie

  Associated Film Distributors. 1979, color, 95 minutes, rated G

  Producer: Jim Henson; director: James Frawley; screenplay: Jack Burns & Jerry Juhl; original songs: Paul Williams & Kenny Ascher; cinematographer: Isidore Mankofsky; editor: Christopher Greenbury

  Selected cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, and Dave Goelz (Muppet characters); Charles Durning (Doc Hopper); Austin Pendleton (Max); Mel Brooks (Professor Max Krassman); Dom DeLuise (Bernie the Agent); Madeline Kahn (El Sleezo Patron); Cloris Leachman (Lord’s Secretary); Richard Pryor (Balloon Vendor); and Orson Welles (Lew Lord)

  The Nude Bomb

  Universal, 1980, color, 94 minutes, rated PG

  Producer: Jennings Lang; director: Clive Donner; screenplay: Bill Dana, Leonard Stern, and Arne Sultan; based on characters created by Mel Brooks & Buck Henry; original song: Don Black and Lalo Schifrin; original music: Lalo Schifrin; cinematographer: Harry L. Wolf; editors: Walter Hannemann and Phil Tucker

  Selected cast: Don Adams (Maxwell Smart), Sylvia Kristel (Agent 34), Rhonda Fleming (Edith Von Secondberg), Dana Elcar (Chief), Pamela Hensley (Agent 35), and Norman Lloyd (Carruthers)

  History of the World: Part I

  Twentieth Century-Fox, 1981, color, 92 minutes, rated R

  Producer/director/screenplay: Mel Brooks; songs: Mel Brooks & Ronny Graham; original music: John Morris; cinematographer: Woody Omens; editor: John C. Howard

  Selected cast: Mel Brooks (Moses/Comicus/Torquemada/Jacques/Louis XVI), Dom DeLuise (Emperor Caesar), Madeline Kahn (Empress Nympho), Harvey Korman (Count de Monet), Cloris Leachman (Madame DeFarge), Ron Carey (Swiftus), Gregory Hines (Josephus), Pamela Stephenson (Mademoiselle Rimbaud), Sid Caesar (Chief Caveman), Mary-Margaret Humes (Miriam), and Orson Welles (Narrator)

  To Be or Not to Be

  Twentieth Century-Fox, 1983, color, 107 minutes, rated PG

  Producer: Mel Brooks; director: Alan Johnson; screenplay: Ronny Graham & Thomas Meehan, based on the 1942 screenplay by Edwin Justus Mayer and the screen story by Melchior Lengyel and Ernst Lubitsch; original songs: Mel Brooks & Ronny Graham; original music: John Morris; cinematographer: Gerald Hirschfeld; editor: Alan Balsam

  Selected cast: Mel Brooks (Dr. Frederick Bronski), Anne Bancroft (Anna Bronski), Tim Matheson (Lieutenant Andre Sobinski), Charles Durning (Colonel Erhardt), Christopher Lloyd (Captain Schultz), Jose Ferrer (Professor Siletski), Ronny Graham (Sondheim), and Max Brooks (Rifka’s Son)

  Spaceballs

  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1987, color, 96 minutes, rated PG

  Producer/director: Mel Brooks; screenplay: Mel Brooks & Thomas Meehan & Ronny Graham; original song: Jeff Pescetto, Clyde Lieberman, & Mel Brooks; original music: John Morris; cinematographer: Nick McLean; editor: Conrad Buff IV

  Selected cast: Mel Brooks (President Skroob/Yoghurt), Rick Moranis (Dark Helmet), Bill Pullman (Lone Starr), Daphne Zuniga (Princess Vespa), John Candy (Barfolemew [“Barf”]), George Wyner (Colonel Sandurz), Joan Rivers (voice of Dot Matrix), and Dick Van Patten (King Roland)

  Look Who’s Talking Too

  TriStar, 1990, color, 81 minutes, rated PG-13

  Producer: Jonathan D. Krane; director: Amy Heckerling; screenplay: Amy Heckerling & Neal Israel, based on characters created by Amy Heckerling; original music: David Kitay; cinematographer: Thomas Del Ruth; editor: Debra Chiate

  Selected cast: John Travolta (James Ubriacco), Kirstie Alley (Mollie Ubriacco), Olympia Dukakis (Rosie), Bruce Willis (voice of Mikey), Roseanne Barr (voice of Julie), Damon Wayans (voice of Eddie), and Mel Brooks (voice of Mr. Toilet Man)

  Life Stinks

  Hetro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 1991, color, 92 minutes, rated PG-13

  Producer/director: Mel Brooks; screenplay/screen story: Mel Brooks & Ron Clark & Rudy DeLuca & Steve Haberman; original music: John Morris; cinematographer: Stephen B. Poster; editors: Michael Mulconery, David Rawlins, and Anthony Redman

  Selected cast: Mel Brooks (Goddard “Pepto” Bolt), Lesley Ann Warren (Molly), Jeffrey Tambor (Vance Crasswell), Howard Morris (Sailor), Rudy DeLuca (J. Paul Getty), and Teddy Wilson (Fumes)

  Robin Hood: Hen in Tights

  Twentieth Century-Fox, 1993, color, 104 minutes, rated PG-13

  Producer/director: Mel Brooks; screenplay: Mel Brooks & Evan Chandler & J. David Shapiro; screen story: Evan Chandler and J. David Shapiro; original songs: Mel Brooks & Hummie Mann; original music: Hummie Mann; cinematographer: Michael D. O’Shea; editor: Stephen E. Rivkin

  Selected cast: Cary Elwes (Robin Hood), Richard Lewis (Prince John), Roger Rees (Sheriff of Rottingham), Amy Yasbeck (Maid Marian), Dave Chappelle (Ahchoo), Isaac Hayes (Asneeze), Tracey Ullman (Latrine), Patrick Stewart (King Richard), Dom DeLuise (Don Giovanni), Dick Van Patten (the Abbot), and Mel Brooks (Rabbi Tuckman)

  The Silence of the Hams

  October Films, 1994, color, 81 minutes, rated R

  Producers: Julie Corman and Ezio Greggio; director/screenplay: Ezio Greggio; original music: Parmer Fuller; cinematographer: Jacques Haitkin; editors: Robert Barrere and Andy Horvitch

  Selected cast: Ezio Greggio (Antonio Motel), Dom DeLuise (Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza), Billy Zane (Jo Dee Foster), Joanna Pacula (Lily Wine), Charlene Tilton (Jane Wine), Martin Balsam (Detective Martin Balsam), and Mel Brooks (Checkout Guest)

  The Little Rascals

  Universal, 1994, color. 82 minutes, rated PG

  Producers: Michael King and Bill Oakes; director: Penelope Spheeris; screenplay: Paul Guay & Stephen Mazur & Penelope Spheeris: screen story: Penelope Spheeris & Robert Wolterstorff & Mike Scott & Paul Guay & Stephen Mazur; original song: Leroy Shield; original music: William Ross; cinematographer: Richard Bowen; editors: Ross Albert and Peter Teschner

  Selected cast: Travis Tedford (George “Spanky” McFarland), Kevin Jamal Woods (Matthew “Stymie” Beard), Jordan Warkol (Robert “Froggy” Lawford), Zachary Mabry (Patrick “Porky” Lee), Ross Elliot Bagley (William “Buckwheat” Thomas), Mel Brooks (Mr. Welling, the banker), Whoopi Goldberg (Buckwheat’s Mom), and Reba McEntire (A. J. Ferguson)

  Dracula: Dead and Loving It

  Columbia, 1995, color, 88 minutes, rated PG-13

  Producer/director: Mel Brooks; screenplay: Mel Brooks, Rudy DeLuca, and Steve Haberman; screen story: Rudy DeLuca & Steve Haberman; original music: Hummie Mann; cinematographer: Michael D. O’Shea; editor: Adam Weiss

  Selected cast: Leslie Nielsen (Count Dracula), Peter MacNicol (R. M. Renfield), Steven Weber (Jonathan
Harker), Amy Yasbeck (Mina Murray), Mel Brooks (Dr. Abraham Van Helsing), Lysette Anthony (Lucy Westenra), Harvey Korman (Dr. Jack Seward), and Anne Bancroft (Madame Ouspenskaya, the gypsy woman)

  The Prince of Egypt

  DreamWorks, 1998, color, 99 minutes, rated PG

  Producers: Penney Finkleman Cox and Sandra Rabins; directors: Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells; screenplay: Phil LaZebnik; additional screenplay material: Nicholas Meyer; story: Ken Harsha and Anthony Leondis; additional story: Ronaldo Del Carmen, Carole Holliday, and Frank Tamura; original songs: Stephen Schwartz and Hans Zimmer; original music: Hans Zimmer; editor: Nick Fletcher

  Selected voices: Val Kilmer (Moses/God), Ralph Fiennes (Rameses), Michelle Pfeiffer (Tzipporah), Sandra Bullock (Miriam), Jeff Goldblum (Aaron), Danny Glover (Jethro), Patrick Stewart (Pharaoh Seti I), Steve Martin (Hotep), Martin Short (Huy), and Mel Brooks (additional voice)

  Screw Loose

  Italian, 1999, color, 85 minutes, rated R

  Producers: Ezio Greggio and Whitney R. Hunter; director: Ezio Greggio; screenplay: Rudy DeLuca & Steve Haberman; original music: Silvio Amato and Umberto Smaila; cinematographer: Luca Robecchi; editor: Gib Jaffe