It's Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks (10 page)

It was not too long before Caesar, who knew all too well what it was like to be poor and to live from hand to mouth, felt duty-bound to provide Brooks with some sort of actual weekly stipend. He asked Mel how much he wanted to remain on tap day in and day out to provide the
Admiral Broadway Revue
with comedic bits (i.e., shtick) as the occasion demanded it. Mel quickly shot back that $50 a week would be good. (This was the amount some of the others on the show’s staff were then earning.)

Caesar countered, “That’s unheard of. Let’s make it forty.”

Brooks insisted, “No, I need fifty.”

Caesar suggested, “Tell you what I’m gonna do. I’ll give you forty-five if Max [Liebman] gives you the other five.” Sid consulted with Max, but Liebman, still vastly unimpressed with the unorthodox, unseasoned Mel, said, “No!” So Caesar, wanting to help Mel keep afloat and sensing that this go-getter had the fertile imagination to provide useful comedic ideas in the future, decided to pay Brooks $40 a week from his own wallet.

Time passed. Mel continued to contribute ideas to Sid for the weekly allotment of TV sketches. One of Brooks’s specialties became a recurring skit called “Nonentities in the News.” In this piece, utility cast member Tom Avera portrayed a reporter assigned to interview a series of strange characters played by Sid and other cast regulars.

By springtime, Mel had gained more confidence from his assorted contributions to
Admiral Broadway Revue
and boldly approached Caesar for a salary increase. Sid was inclined to say no but decided to see for himself where Mel was then living. (He wanted to judge in person if Brooks’s claim that he was living in a hovel was merely a dramatic exaggeration.) The TV star traveled down to Broome Street in Greenwich Village to check out Mel’s basement residence. It required only a quick look for Sid to realize that his cohort was not living in a hovel but
beneath
a hovel. Caesar promptly bumped up Brooks’s stipend to $50 a week.

With a solid response from home viewers, it was assumed that
Admiral Broadway Revue
would continue on beyond its first season. However, by May 1949, word came down from on high. The Admiral Corporation was not renewing its sponsorship of the hit program for another season. It made no sense to the staff, but they knew that in the world of show business, logic was often not the order of the business day. On June 3, 1949,
Admiral Broadway Revue
aired its 19th and final production. Only weeks later did Sid Caesar learn the actual cause of the puzzling cancellation. The head of the Admiral Corporation informed Caesar that because the
Admiral Broadway Revue
had been so surprisingly successful, there had been a huge, unexpected consumer demand for Admiral TV sets. It had required the company to suddenly expand its manufacturing facilities. As a result, they could not afford to do that and continue to sponsor the TV series. It was the first and one of the very few occurrences of a TV program being terminated because it was too popular and had done its job of selling the sponsor’s products too well.

Once again, Brooks wondered where his next job would come from and how he could engineer a new industry assignment. He understood that recurring unemployment was part and parcel of the up-and-down life of show business. However, this hardly mollified his prideful belief that he was far too talented to be subjected to such typical nerve-wracking periods of professional idleness. When, he wondered, would everyone awaken to the fact that Mel Brooks would
never
abandon his goal of becoming famous in the world of entertainment? Why did they not realize that these obstacles in the way of his gaining success never could overwhelm his drive to prove to everyone (including himself) that he really was somebody and a talent to be reckoned with?

10
Your Show of Shows

I should have been impressed [being part of
Your Show of Shows]
but I was a cocky kid. I was filled with hubris and marvelous ego. I thought I was God’s gift to writing … and I was.

–Mel Brooks, 1996

Within a short time after it was announced that
Admiral Broadway Revue
would be going off the air, Sylvester “Pat” Weaver met anew with Max Liebman. The trendsetting television industry VIP had a fresh offer to make the Broadway (and now TV) showman. Weaver confided to Liebman that he envisioned an ambitious, fresh project for his network’s lineup. It was
NBC Saturday Night Revue
, a three-hour weekly offering that would provide high-caliber entertainment so enticing that the public would gladly stay home on Saturday evenings to watch the exciting new show. Since Pat was such a fast-rising top executive at NBC, he was in a solid position to carry out his elaborate vision.

After Weaver’s discussions with Liebman (sometimes with Sid Caesar present to provide feedback), it was decided that
NBC Saturday Night Revue
would be the umbrella title for two offerings to be aired consecutively: a 60-minute show broadcast live from Chicago from 8
P.M.
to 9
P.M
., starring the snappy stand-up comedian Jack Carter, followed by a 90-minute entry presented live from New York City from 9
P.M
. to 10:30
P.M
.
The Jack Carter Show—
the first hour of
NBC Saturday Night Revue—
would utilize a vaudeville-style format of assorted acts, much like Milton Berle did so successfully on his Tuesday night TV showcase on the
Texaco Star Theater.
The next segment,
Your Show of Shows,
would be a revue-style presentation. Liebman would be in charge of the latter. The deal was soon put in place.

Max brought over to the new series much of the talent he had utilized on
Admiral Broadway Revue.
This included key performers Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, as well as writers Lucille Kallen and Mel Tolkin, set designer Frederick Fox, choreographer/dance performer James Starbuck, conductor Charles Sanford, and several others. What really excited Max about the venture was that he would no longer be confined by a meager $15,000 weekly budget, but now would be allowed to expend up to $65,000 on each production during the 39-week season. To further demonstrate their faith in Liebman’s capabilities, the network provided Liebman and his team with four floors of headquarters at the enormous City Center facility at 130 West 56th Street.

With the expanded time slot allotted him, Max, a culture maven, grandly envisioned presenting both the expected comedy skits as well as such added attractions as full-blown dance numbers (including ballet) and sophisticated segments that would feature classical music and opera. Besides the core group of performers,
Your Show of Shows
would contract name guest stars to host each week’s presentation and to appear in sketches and/or musical numbers within the envisioned classy vehicle.

With its much-touted debut set for late February 1950, Max quickly added to the roster of show regulars. These included opera singers Marguerite Piazza and Robert Merrill, the dance team of Mata and Hari, the Billy Williams Quartet, the Hamilton Dancers, and handsome young vocalist Bill Hayes. Liebman decided that Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, who had begun performing skits together on
Admiral Broadway Revue
partway through the season, would continue to be paired on
Your Show of Shows,
as well as handle solo spots that played to each of their particular artistic strengths.

Since the lineup of sketches within the 90-minute format would occupy less than half of the allotted time slot, the budget-conscious Liebman felt that his reliable writing team of Kallen and Tolkin could “easily” handle the weekly load of creating the needed sketch material and occasional new song offerings. Max continued to ignore the overeager Mel Brooks, who was waiting impatiently on the sidelines to learn about his possible status—if any—on
Your Show of Shows.
Actually, if Liebman had had his way, the bothersome young hanger-on would have been barred from the proceedings altogether. However, Caesar refused to let that happen. As the bigger of the top two stars of this major new TV project, he had more clout than before and exerted his power to protect Brooks’s interest. Sid informed Max that for the time being, he would continue to pay his friend $50 weekly from his own checkbook. Liebman was anxious to focus on more pressing considerations and gruffly agreed to go along with Caesar’s wishes in this trivial matter. However, Max warned his leading man that he would brook no interference from this undisciplined mascot—this
schlepper.
It was understood that Brooks would keep far away from Max unless his immediate presence was requested to help resolve a skit problem. When Brooks learned the news, he was relieved to be again “employed” in the business, but it certainly rankled him that Liebman continued to have so little regard for his talents. (In typical Mel Brooks style, he buried such hurt and insecurities beneath a compensatory bluster.)

When
NBC Saturday Night Revue
premiered on February 25, 1950, the critical response (at least for the
Your Show of Shows
segment) was even more favorable than that accorded previously to the
Admiral Broadway Revue.
Jack Gould (of the
New York Times
) enthused that the Manhattan-based portion of the evening was “really out of the top drawer, boasting variety in the true sense of the word and having an adult flavor throughout.”
Variety
concurred that NBC had a winning Saturday night entry, especially with
Your Show of Shows.
The trade publication rated the premiere a “solid block of big-time entertainment and sales potentials.” Sylvester Weaver was jubilant that his continued faith in the highly capable Max Liebman had paid off so richly.

•     •     •

During the first follow-up episodes of
Your Show of Shows
, the caliber of material and the production values continued to improve. And where was the overeager Mel Brooks during these crucial first weeks of the season as the program’s staff worked furiously to iron out the wrinkles in each new weekly offering? Largely, the outsider was relegated to pacing the halls of the City Center production headquarters or waiting nervously out on the street hoping to join Sid and others when they emerged for a lunch break or to indulge in an occasional afternoon visit to a local steam bath.

Those times when Mel was summoned by King Caesar to provide last-minute skit shtick, he jubilantly jumped into action. This fireball of energy and bravado would spit out wild comedy premises, bits, and comedy lines to help Caesar and the other creative forces sail through an artistic impasse. Liebman aside, many of the
Your Show of Shows
team had come to admit that the tenacious Brooks actually was proving to be a useful creative backup. While he was certainly an odd, abrasive mix of chutzpah and thinly veiled insecurity, he also was a man who wore a cheery smile and sang/hummed upbeat songs. However, beneath this bluster lurked a growing reservoir of cynicism that verged on fatalism. (Because Brooks was so obsessed with the ongoing state of his health, many in the group thought him an overzealous hypochondriac.) This quirky little man hung on Sid’s every word and was his taciturn boss’s biggest champion (next to Caesar’s ever-present factotum, the hulking Dave Caesar). But it was becoming obvious to some shrewd on-the-scene observers that Mel, the former Catskills tummler, had such a large ego that one day even the mighty Sid Caesar might not be able to control him.

By the time the seventh episode of
Your Show of Shows
aired in April 1950, Brooks had so often stormed the fortress that a weary Max Liebman finally conceded defeat and allowed Mel actual screen credit on the series. (This situation was prompted because Mel, on his own initiative, had submitted a full skit that was used on the latest show. In the routine, Caesar was cast as a colorful Russian actor who is a devotee of Method acting and demonstrates the process for onlookers. First he becomes a pinball careening wildly about a pinball machine, then he takes on both roles in a burlesque version of
Romeo and Juliet.
) Thus, that night’s closing crawl of credits included a new listing, “Additional Dialogue by Mel Brooks.”

Having won this pivotal battle with the strong-willed producer, the ambitious Brooks moved on to his next goal: becoming an actual salaried member of the team. He aggressively demanded—and soon won the concession—to be paid out of the show’s production budget rather than receive the embarrassing handouts from Sid Caesar. With one foot now solidly in the door, Mel doggedly pursued his next objective: to be given screen credits as a
full
member of the writing squad. (As a bemused Caesar assessed his friend’s ascension: “He was pushing his way into the writers’ room through a combination of raw talent, inertia and sheer chutzpah.”) By the 1951–1952 season, Brooks had achieved his latest goal. The show’s crawl was changed to state, “Written by Max Liebman, Sid Caesar, Lucille Kallen, Mel Tolkin and Mel Brooks.”

•     •     •

Now that the relentless Brooks was actually a legitimate part of the show’s writing team, it soon became a habit among the program’s staff to refer to Mel Tolkin as “Big Mel” and to Brooks as “Little Mel.” As Liebman increasingly devoted more of his focus to the program’s segments of classical music, opera, and song-and-dance production numbers, it fell increasingly to the erudite Tolkin to take on the mantle of the series’ head writer. Because Lucille Kallen was the sole woman in the writing group—and since this was in the era before feminism and sexual equality in the workplace—she was assigned to take notes at the writers’ work sessions. (What bound her to that secretarial task was that, unlike the other writers, she could type.) Much more so than Imogene Coca, Sid made a point of attending these writers’ meetings. Caesar not only had many viable suggestions to contribute, but he realized that it was the best way for him to have quality control over the skits in which he would perform. Sid did none of the actual script writing. Instead, after he introduced a possible premise to the others, his main input was to channel the flow of ensuing discussion.