Brooks Mel - Its good to be the king: the seriously funny life of Mel Brooks

ITS GOOD TO BE
THE KING

The Seriously Funny
Life of
Mel Brooks

James Robert Parish

Copyright 2007 by James Robert Parish. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Parish, James Robert.
Its good to be the king : the seriously funny life of Mel Brooks / James Robert Parish,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-22526-4
1. Brooks, Mel. 2. ComediansUnited StatesBiography. 3. Motion picture actors
and actressesUnited StatesBiography. 4. Motion picture producers and directorsUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.
PN2287.B695P37 2007
792.7028092dc22
[B]

2006016533

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Mel Brooks fans everywhere

Contents

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the following for their kind cooperation on this project: Academy of Dance on Film (Larry Billman), Patrick Agan, Bruce Bailey, Robert Bentley, Billy Rose Theater Collection of the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, Ronald L. Bowers, Michael Buckley, Charles Callas, Catskills Association (Phil Brown), Cinefex magazine (Don Shay), John Cocchi, Stephen Cole, Bobby Cramer, Ernest Cunningham, Jacques DAmboise, Joe Dante, Bernard F. Dick, Douglas Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study, Dream City Photo Lab (Jack Allen), Michael B. Druxman, Eleanor Knowles Dugan, Echo Book Shop, Rob Edelman, David Ehrenstein, Emorac, Inc. (Eric Monder), Filming Today Press (G. D. Hamann), Dave Finkle, Professor James Fisher, Sharon R. Fox, Dick Gautier, Alex Gildzen, Bruce Gold, Shecky Greene, Pierre Guinle, Ray Hagen, Harry Haun, Travis Michael Holder, Lawrence Holofcener, Ron Husmann, Judy Israel, JC Archives, Will Jordan, Matthew Kennedy, Allegra Kent, John Kern, Jeff Kisseloff, Sam Kisseloff, Tom Kleinschmidt, Richard W. Krevolin, Audrey E. Kupferberg, Shawn Levy, Ben Livingston, Alvin H. Marill, Lee Mattson, Rick McKay, Marty Meyers, Dr. Gerry Molyneaux, Museum of Television & Radio (Jane Klain), Charles Nelson, Stephen OBrien, the late Richard OConnor, Jay Ogletree, Kimberly OQuinn, Albert L. Ortega, Patrick Pacheco, Photofest (Doug McKeown and Howard Mandelbaum), Michael R. Pitts, Jared Poppel, Seth Poppel, Bill Reed, Barry Rivadue, Jonathan Rosenthal, Brenda Scott Royce, Barry Saltzman, Brad Schreiber, Margie Schultz, the late Arleen Schwartz, Jonathan Schwartz, Joan Seaton, Nat Segaloff, Ted Sennett, J. D. Shapiro, Stephen M. Silverman, Andre Soares, Spyder, David Stenn, Steve Taravella, Allan Taylor (editorial consultant, copy editor, and indexer), Vincent Terrace, University of Southern California Cinema-Television Library (Ned Comstock), Lou Valentino, Dick Van Patten, Laura Wagner, Tom Waldman, Steven Whitney, Don Wigal, Max Wilk, and those additional sources who requested to remain anonymous.

With special thanks to my editor, Eric Nelson, and my agent, Stuart Bernstein.

Introduction

Yeah. Im buoyant. Im happy so I can respond to people in a very funny way. I prefer to be funny. Not hysterical. Hysterical only when theres a lot of people involved and then it is my bound duty to have them falling all over the floor laughing. Then Im very funny. But comedy is a big risk. One clink. One sour note. And youre going to look bad. Comics are very brave people.

Mel Brooks, 1978

Growing up in small-town America, I was thrilled when my family purchased its first television set. It was the late 1940s, and TV was still a fledgling commercial enterprise in the United States. I recall vividly one of the first programs I saw on the tiny 10-inch screen of our just-installed living room set. It was The Admiral Broadway Revue. For a youngster already fascinated with the magical world of entertainment (especially films), the variety and quality of live fare offered on this weekly TV program, and especially its successor, Your Show of Shows, was manna indeed.

Jumping ahead to the winter of 1962 in Philadelphia, it had become customary for me to put aside my college homework on Saturday afternoons to catch a matinee of the latest new play trying out in town. On this particular day I saw All American, a Broadway-bound musical starring Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow of MGMs The Wizard of Oz) and directed by the famous Joshua Logan. Whatever the shows flaws in its embryonic form, the lavish productionwith its vivid costumes, slick turntable sets, and catchy scoreleft a strong impression on me for years to come.

A few years later, I was living and working in Manhattan and made a point of attending a new movie that had recently opened at a local art house theater. It featured Christopher Hewett, whom I had met during recent summers working as propmaster at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. I was curious to see him perform on the big screen. I watched the offbeat movie The Producers with fascination, and afterward enthusiastically told friends about this outrageous comedy written by Mel Brooks, which costarred Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. I soon purchased the sound track to The Producers, which contained not only the films background music but dialogue interludes, as well as the highly controversial musical number Springtime for Hitler (which, according to the albums liner notes, had been written by Brooks himself).

Months later, when Brooks received an Academy Award in the Best Original Screenplay category for The Producers script, I read several of the extensive articles published about this new Oscar recipient. Suddenly, I realized that Mel Brooks had been a key contributor to many wonderful projects. For TV, he had been a gag supplier for The Admiral Broadway Revue and a comedy writer for Your Show of Shows