WWII vet and Hollywood icon Mel Brooks celebrates the big 9-8
Mel Brooks is a national treasure and a highly acclaimed director, actor, comedian, playwright, songwriter and filmmaker. He celebrated his 98th birthday on June 28, 2024. He has done it all with his projects and is one of a rare few professionals who have been awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony (EGOT).
His movies have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars and his TV shows have been highly rated. He broke into the Hollywood scene on Your Show of Shows as a writer for the Sid Caesar variety comedy show. He collaborated with future top-level industry professionals with Carl Reiner, Neil Simon and Mel Tokin. His film highlights include Blazing Saddles, The Producers, Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and History of the World, Part I. His TV credits include Get Smart, History of the World: Part II on Hulu and Spaceballs: The Animated Series. Before Brooks made waves in Hollywood and the American public with his writing and comedy he served in the U.S. Army in Europe.
Brooks was drafted into the Army in 1944. His IQ scores were so high the Army sent him to the Virginia Military Institute to learn electrical engineering, horseback riding and saber fighting. He trained as a radio operator at Fort Sill next and then was sent to Europe in late 1944. He served as a Forward Observer in the 78th Infantry Division and in late 1944 he served with the 1104th Engineer Combat Battalion as a combat engineer. Brooks participated in the famous Battle of the Bulge and encountered the horrors of war.
He stated:
“Along the roadside, you’d see bodies wrapped up in mattress covers and stacked in a ditch, and those would be Americans, that could be me. I sang all the time…I never wanted to think about it…Death is the enemy of everyone, and even though you hate Nazis, death is more of an enemy than a German soldier.”
Brooks later served in Saarbrucken and Baumholder as his unit was tasked with clearing booby traps in buildings and disarming land mines for the Allies advance. His job was to locate the land mines to be defused. Of note, his unit built the first Bailey bridge over the Roer River and built bridges over the Rhine River. His last combat role was to conduct reconnaissance missions into the Harz mountains. He earned the rank of corporal and his last duties were as a comedian with the Special Services as he toured bases to entertain troops. Brooks was honorably discharged in June of 1946 and went back to his dream of comedy.
He returned stateside and began again up the comedy mountainside. He progressed through the 1950s and into the early 60s with Sid Caesar and his fellow writer friends Carl Reiner and Mel Tolkin. Brooks’ first hit in the 1960s was the 2000 Year Old Man act on The Steve Allen Show, about a man who had been married hundreds of times and had tens of thousands of children, yet none of them came to visit him. It was so popular it was turned into a comedy album. His next success in the 1960s was his Oscar-winning Short Film, The Critic, and the Emmy award-winning TV Show Get Smart, which starred Marine Corps veteran Don Adams as Maxwell Smart. The show lasted 5 seasons and 138 episodes.
He moved onto features with The Producers which won him his second Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film was championed by comedian and actor Peter Sellers yet struggled to find an audience. It was met with mixed reviews and later was adapted into a highly successful Broadway musical in the 2000s which broke records. Brooks met even higher levels of stardom in the 1970s with Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie and High Anxiety. During this period he transitioned to lead roles in the films he wrote and directed. Blazing Saddles broke the $100M line, which was huge in 1974-era cinema.
Brooks had further success and in a diversity of roles throughout the 1980s. He produced films, both comedies and serious drama, through his company Brooksfilm such as The Elephant Man, Frances and The Fly, which were well outside his usual comedy fair. He wrote, produced and directed History of the World Part I, which was back in his mainstream comedy genre and starred in To Be or Not To Be. His next directorial film was Spaceballs, which although not a hit upon release, even though it pokes fun at one of the biggest franchises of all time, Star Wars, became a cult classic and is one of his most well-known films. Brooks went into the 90s with a full head of steam and made his best film of the decade in 1993 with Robin Hood: Men in Tights. It has since become a classic and key parody of many Robin Hood films. Since the 2000s he has worked as a voice actor in many projects such as Robots, Mr. Peabody & Sherman and Hotel Transylvania 2 and 3.
Brooks was married to highly successful and award-winning actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 to 2005, when she passed away in 05. He takes a strong interest in reading, especially Russian classics written by Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevski and Tolstoy. He has a Kennedy Center Honor (2009), a Hollywood Walk of Fame star (2010), an AFI Life Achievement Award (2013) and an Honorary Academy Award (2024). Brooks has found success in a challenging industry post his service in a difficult and trying war, which is a testament to his wherewithal and talent.
