Still blazing after all these years: Mel Brooks at 100

Mel Brooks’ life traces the story of the US, of Jews and of American Jewish comedy. He was born on the kitchen table of a tenement in Brooklyn a century ago in the same month Marilyn Monroe made her own entrance on the opposite coast. The son of European immigrants, he was raised by his mother after his father died when he was two, and as the smallest, sickliest of four brothers he developed an almost pathological desire for attention.

As Larry Gelbart put it, “Mel thought when he got slapped in the ass by the doctor who delivered him that was applause, and he has not stopped performing since.” Brooks learned to make a noise on the drums, taught by Buddy Rich, and his youth was interrupted by Adolf Hitler when the teenage Brooks joined the army and took part in the Battle of the Bulge.

Those years explain his commitment to mocking Nazis and his claim that “comedy is the opposite of death”. Returning home, he drummed at Borscht Belt resorts, filled in for ill comics and found the joy of getting laughs.

United States, Brooklyn

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