It's Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks (2 page)

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If Mel Brooks the astute and talented artist can easily slip into Brooks the buffoon both in front of and behind the film and TV cameras and confuse some of the public as to which is the
real
Mel Brooks, he has similarly confounded the public about his private life. When, in the early 1960s, it was rumored that comedian/comedy writer Mel was dating the dazzling Broadway luminary Anne Bancroft, the running theory was that it must be a wild joke. After all, what would a vivacious and beautiful acting genius like Bancroft (who made such an indelible impression on the stage in
Two for the Seesaw
and
The Miracle Worker
) see in the daft Mel Brooks, an ex-Catskills performer and TV writer? When the “disparate” couple actually wed in the summer of 1964, the public took odds on how long this seemingly ridiculously mismatched pair would (or could) maintain their “absurd” marriage. As he did so often in his event-crowded, roller-coaster life, Mel proved the scoffers wrong. He and Bancroft, who became parents of a son, Max, enjoyed one of the longest-lasting and, to all accounts, happiest unions in show business history—a lengthy personal partnership that only ended with Anne’s death from cancer in mid-2005.

•     •     •

Looking back on his impressive, award-winning show business career—which has included stints as a Catskills summer resort entertainer; a TV comedy writer and sitcom creator and director; a Broadway musical comedy book author; a radio commercial writer and performer; a comedy record star; a TV talk show favorite; a film producer, director, scripter, and actor; a music video performer; and, more recently, a playwright and songwriter of a megahit Broadway show—Brooks once acknowledged, “If you want something, you have to do your homework, you have to take the trouble and make the necessary sacrifices. It’s never easy.”

Many times Brooks miraculously pulled a creative iron out of the fire in the midst of failure and climbed back into the highly competitive show business race once again. His ups and downs are partly the result of one of the most fascinating aspects of this irrepressible, complicated, often bedeviled, and frequently disorganized talent: placed into the standard role of sole writer, director, or comic, he often failed. His greatest professional success came when he went far out on a limb, beyond the limits where he could reasonably be expected to succeed, in transforming himself into a director, in suddenly becoming a composer, and even in playing the figurative Romeo to Anne Bancroft’s intimidating Juliet. But in almost every case, he was only as good as the person holding onto the limb he went out on. In
Young Frankenstein
, for instance, the limb was not only the original film but the solid structure that Gene Wilder brought to the original story treatment and the screenplay, for which Mel got the lion’s share of credit.

In examining his career, it is impossible not to admire his ability to adapt, cooperate, create, and excel under tremendous pressure. In fact, it’s the way he seems to have done his best work.

1
Out of the Ashes of Despair

The difference [between a director and an auteur] is that a director who is working for a living simply does the job, which may not be akin to his philosophy, but it is not inconsistent to have the same man being both. The word is “hunger.” If you are hungry and nobody will buy your original idea, you might get lucky, direct a Kellogg’s cornflakes commercial and take home a few boxes.

–Mel Brooks, 1971

In the early 1970s, Mel Brooks had reason to find himself in an ironic position as far as his career was concerned. He had already won Academy Awards and Emmys, and had hit radio commercials and three successful comedy albums (such as
The 2000 Year Old Man
). He was a veteran of the writing teams for two of the most cherished series of American television’s golden age:
Your Show of Shows
and
Caesar’s Hour.
Brooks’s recent association with the highly successful sitcom
Get Smart
had enhanced his visibility with the public and given him additional industry credibility. Although his movie
The Twelve Chairs
(1970) had failed to make any tangible impact at the box office,
The Producers
(1968) was well on its way to becoming a cult favorite.

Yet Brooks was now unable to get
any
new show business projects off the ground and into production. How many times, he must have wondered, did he have to crash through the establishment’s barriers before he gained solid acceptance from his peers and the public? How long could he continue to subject himself to the ordeal of starting over—yet again?

For a time, Mel wanted to produce a film version of
She Stoops to Conquer.
He had seen an off-Broadway production of the Restoration-era comedy and hoped to interest Albert Finney in starring in the vehicle, which would be shot in England. (In Brooks’s excitement over this potential screen venture, he forgot his recent oath to stick to mainstream projects that could be box-office winners.) However, as it turned out, the period piece did not appeal to Finney or to film studio executives. Brooks had to abandon that idea. This new rejection reinforced to Mel just how much Hollywood had turned a cold shoulder toward him as a moviemaker. Meanwhile, there was brief talk of Mel and Gene Wilder joining the cast of an upcoming MGM comedy,
Every Little Crook and Nanny.
However, when that feature film was shot, others claimed the suggested roles.

While Brooks was vainly searching for a filmmaking deal, he forced himself to keep busy in other aspects of show business, which, at least, would help keep his name alive in the industry. In this mode, Mel took assorted TV gigs, ranging from appearing on Dick Cavett’s talk show to being a guest on the game show
Jeopardy!
Brooks also provided the voice of the Blond-Haired Cartoon Man on the PBS-TV animated children’s series
The Electric Company.
In the winter of 1973, producer Max Liebman theatrically released the film
10 from Your Show of Shows
(a compilation of restored kinescopes from the beloved TV series), and Brooks and other regulars from that program received renewed media attention and were frequently interviewed. Meanwhile, when Professor Richard Brown taught his filmmakers course at the New York University’s School of Continuing Education in Manhattan, Brooks was among the guest speakers, along with such others as Cliff Robertson, Shirley MacLaine, Eli Wallach, and Anne Jackson. When Mario Thomas packaged her starstudded ABC special
Free to Be .. . You
(5*
Me
(1974), an animated children’s musical, Brooks provided the voice of a baby boy.

But no matter how Mel tried to gloss over the facts, such activities were largely busywork, and he continued to brood over his inability to step back into the ranks of film directors.

Brooks’s luck finally began to change for the better in 1973 when he had an auspicious accidental encounter with talent agent David Begelman on the streets of Manhattan. Later, when Begelman, now his talent representative, first brought the
Tex X
project to Mel’s attention, Brooks almost said no to shaping the treatment into a screenplay for Warner Bros. He argued that it went against his belief that he should only develop his own ideas. Then he came to think better of the timely offer. At the very least, it would get him back to Hollywood and provide a decent paycheck. With a mixture of resignation and a what-the-hell attitude, Mel agreed to give the venture a shot. After all, what did he have to lose at this professional low point?

In setting to work on the
Tex
X screenplay, Brooks heeded his earlier pledge to surround himself with cowriters whenever he next wrote a script. Besides hiring Andrew Bergman—the original author of the screen treatment—Mel brought aboard the writing team of Norman Steinberg and Alan Uger, two men he already knew. Brooks also wanted to have an authentic black voice on the unorthodox project. Efforts to hire the bright, outspoken comedian Dick Gregory failed. Next, Brooks turned to Richard Pryor, a controversial stand-up comic who had already appeared in several film and TV projects. The maverick Pryor agreed to join the young writing squad.

Over the next several months, Mel and his crew labored over their task of creating a wild and wacky comedy that defied conventions and shattered current standards of political correctness. Their rule of thumb was “Go for broke.” Putting a tempting spin on the emerging scenario, Brooks told the media, “It won’t be a ‘black’ movie but more of a juxtaposition of hypocrisy, greed, flat-out fun and cliches that I’ve been watching since I was 3 years old.… The point is, we’re trying to use every Western cliche in the book—in the hope that we’ll kill them off in the process.”

Mel explained further, “I decided that this would be a surrealist epic. It was time to take two eyes, the way Picasso had done it, and put them on one side of the nose, because the official movie portrait of the West was simply a lie. For nine months, we worked together like maniacs. We went all the way—especially Richard Pryor, who was very brave and very far-out and very catalytic. I figured my career was finished anyway, so I wrote berserk, heartfelt stuff about white corruption and racism and Bible-thumping bigotry. We used dirty language on the screen for the first time, and to me the whole thing was like a big psychoanalytic session. It just got everything out of me—all of my furor, my frenzy, my insanity, my love of life and hatred of death.”

To Mel’s amazement, the studio was impressed with the finished screenplay—despite its blatant irreverence—and ordered the writing team to revise a few story-line points and to shorten the lengthy script. Once that was accomplished, the project (now called
Black Bart
) would go onto the active production schedule at Warner Bros. By now, Mel had chanced bringing his wife, Anne Bancroft, and their infant child to Los Angeles, where they moved into a new residence. (Their home was at 1718 Rising Glen Road, in the hills just above West Hollywood. The spacious house boasted huge glass walls overlooking a swimming pool, 12-foot-high iron gates, and a long entrance driveway. The sizable living room easily accommodated a billiard table and massive overstuffed couches.)

Brooks informed the studio that he wanted to cast Richard Pryor in the pivotal role of the film’s black sheriff. However, according to Mel, the studio balked at this choice. Supposedly, the executives claimed that Pryor lacked “sufficient” acting experience. Brooks was forced to look elsewhere for his lead. Among other possibilities, he considered James Earl Jones, but Jones did not work out. Finally, Brooks auditioned Cleavon Little, a handsome stage/film/TV actor who brought a sly, disarming tone to his screen test. Little was hired for the picture. With that accomplished, Mel sent the
Black Bart
script to veteran actor Dan Dailey, hoping he would play the alcoholic Waco Kid. The former hoofer was not certain if he was right for a Western. He hedged about accepting a key role in this antiestablishment picture, and eventually said no. In this same period, Brooks pursued TV talk show host/comedian Johnny Carson, hoping to convince the conservative Carson to take the assignment. However, Johnny had little faith in his own acting abilities or that this wild screen project would be successful at the box office, and thus refused Mel’s offer. With time running out to cast the crucial part, Brooks contacted Academy Award winner Gig Young. The latter, who had a well-known drinking problem, was in need of work and agreed to play the role of the lawman’s scruffy pal.

When Mel tested actresses for the offbeat role of Lili Von Shtupp (a burlesque of Marlene Dietrich’s screen persona in
Destry Rides Again
), he was thrilled when Madeline Kahn came to his attention. She was a striking new stage and film personality who possessed an operatic voice and a fetching figure, and had a unique way with comedic scenes. Madeline had already made a stir in Hollywood with her scene-stealing performance in the Barbra Streisand comedy
What’s Up, Doc?
and there was good industry buzz about her performance in Peter Bogdanovich’s upcoming release,
Paper Moon.
Kahn recalled of her audition with Brooks, “It lasted hours. I felt like I was at the Mayo Clinic. For a funny man, he’s very serious.”

Ex-professional football player Alex Karras was contracted to make his screen debut as Mongo, a powerfully built dunce, while comedic performer Harvey Korman (famous for his ensemble work on Carol Burnett’s TV comedy/variety series) was assigned the role of the pompous, corrupt politician Hedley Lamarr. The buoyant Dom DeLuise was cast as the effete film director Buddy Bizarre. (Within the wacky plot, Bizarre is helming a musical on the studio lot where the surreal Western is unfolding.) For genre authenticity, veteran cowboy performer Slim Pickens was added to the cast as Lamarr’s bigoted stooge. Because Brooks had so enjoyed emoting in
The Twelve Chairs
, he gave himself two contrasting roles in his mock Western: a Yiddish-speaking Indian chief and the greedy, buffoonish, lewd governor William J. LePetomane. (Mel also made a quickie appearance in the picture as an extra in a lineup of bad men, and Anne Bancroft agreed to be an uncredited extra in a church sequence.)

Filming on the movie—whose title soon was changed to
Blazing Saddles—
got under way in January 1973. One of the first scenes to be shot took place at a jailhouse, where the imprisoned Waco Kid is spotted in an upside-down position. While shooting this footage, Mel noticed that the colead, Gig Young, seemed especially into his performance as the drunk. In fact, Young was even foaming at the mouth. Initially, Brooks thought this was merely Method acting on Young’s part. But soon it became clear that the actor was going through a severe withdrawal attack. He began to convulse, and then passed out. Gig had to be removed from the set by ambulance. Suddenly, at the start of his “comeback” project, Mel was without an essential lead.

Reeling from the disaster at hand, Brooks scrambled to locate a phone on the soundstage and placed an urgent call to Gene Wilder back in New York City. A panicked Mel explained the horrendous situation. Within hours, the producers of Wilder’s upcoming screen project,
The Little Prince
, had agreed to delay that film’s shooting schedule so Gene could immediately substitute on
Blazing Saddles.
By the next morning, Gene was on the
Blazing Saddles
set, ready to work.