June 22, 2006. Copyright 2006, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Mel Brooks, master of the outrageous, turns 80
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, June 22, Graphic News:  Long before the chill winds of political correctness blew through the cracks in U.S. comedy, Mel Brooks was making fart jokes. Despite it, he is still making them laugh with his unique brand of Òbad tasteÓ parodies and farce. Brooks will be 80 on June 28.

Most recently, Brooks has brought The Producers back to the big screen in the latest incarnation of a script he first wrote in 1968. The film remake, which stars Uma Thurman, Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, follows on from the success of BrooksÕ musical adaptation of The Producers on Broadway, which won a record 12 Tony awards.

With its story of a musical about Hitler and its high camp ensemble, The Producers has something to offend everyone. But, as Brooks puts it, Òyou either get it or you donÕt.Ó With his grizzled looks and hammy gestures, Brooks epitomises a kind of old school New York Jewish humour. Put simply, they just donÕt make Ôem like that anymore.

Born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn in 1926, Brooks served briefly as an engineer with the U.S. Army during the Second World War before writing comedy sketches with Carl Reiner. Their ad-libbed skits about the 2000 Year Old Man were turned into records. A TV series parodying Robin Hood, When Things Were Rotten, followed.

Although a prolific writer, director, actor and theatrical producer who has the rare distinction of having been awarded an Oscar, a Grammy, a Tony and an Emmy, Brooks is probably best known for his work on a clutch of movies whose outrageous humour takes the breath away. These include Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, both released in 1974, and History of the World, Part 1, in 1981.

As Brooks has pointed out, today Blazing Saddles would not make it past the censors. The movie, which puts a black sheriff in a redneck town, fairly groans under the weight of one-liners that say the unthinkable. Brooks has also come under fire for his Yiddish sketches, but he still pleases perhaps the toughest crowd of all: in 2005 fellow funnymen included him in a poll to find the ComedianÕs Comedian.

Brooks has also produced some non-comedy films, including The Elephant Man (1980) and 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), which starred his second wife, the late Anne Bancroft, with whom he had a son. Brooks also has three children from his first marriage to Florence Baum, which ended in 1961.

In recent months Brooks has been working on a musical adaptation of Young Frankenstein, which he hopes no doubt will replicate the success of The Producers.
/ENDS