Funny Man: Mel Brooks
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
A deeply textured and compelling biography of comedy giant Mel Brooks, covering his rags-to-riches life and triumphant career in television, films, and theater, from Patrick McGilligan, the acclaimed author of Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane and Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light.
Oscar, Emmy, Tony, and Grammy award–winner Mel Brooks was behind (and sometimes in front the camera too) of some of the most influential comedy hits of our time, including The 2,000 Year Old Man, Get Smart, The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. But before this actor, writer, director, comedian, and composer entertained the world, his first audience was his family.
The fourth and last child of Max and Kitty Kaminsky, Mel Brooks was born on his family’s kitchen table in Brooklyn, New York, in 1926, and was not quite three-years-old when his father died of tuberculosis. Growing up in a household too poor to own a radio, Mel was short and homely, a mischievous child whose birth role was to make the family laugh.
Beyond boyhood, after transforming himself into Mel Brooks, the laughs that came easily inside the Kaminsky family proved more elusive. His lifelong crusade to transform himself into a brand name of popular humor is at the center of master biographer Patrick McGilligan’s Funny Man. In this exhaustively researched and wonderfully novelistic look at Brooks’ personal and professional life, McGilligan lays bare the strengths and drawbacks that shaped Brooks’ psychology, his willpower, his persona, and his comedy.
McGilligan insightfully navigates the epic ride that has been the famous funnyman’s life story, from Brooks’s childhood in Williamsburg tenements and breakthrough in early television—working alongside Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner—to Hollywood and Broadway peaks (and valleys). His book offers a meditation on the Jewish immigrant culture that influenced Brooks, snapshots of the golden age of comedy, behind the scenes revelations about the celebrated shows and films, and a telling look at the four-decade romantic partnership with actress Anne Bancroft that superseded Brooks’ troubled first marriage. Engrossing, nuanced and ultimately poignant, Funny Man delivers a great man’s unforgettable life story and an anatomy of the American dream of success.
Funny Man includes a 16-page black-and-white photo insert.
Patrick McGilligan
Patrick McGilligan is the author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light; Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast; and George Cukor: A Double Life; and books on the lives of directors Nicholas Ray, Robert Altman, and Oscar Micheaux, and actors James Cagney, Jack Nicholson, and Clint Eastwood. He also edited the acclaimed five-volume Backstory series of interviews with Hollywood screenwriters and (with Paul Buhle), the definitive Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, not far from Kenosha, where Orson Welles was born.
Read more from Patrick Mc Gilligan
Funny Man: Mel Brooks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America's First Black Filmmaker Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Clint: The Life and Legend Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Film Crazy: Interviews with Hollywood Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Funny Man
Related ebooks
Rickles' Book: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Young Frankenstein (40th Anniversary) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIt's Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My Anecdotal Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Starstruck: My Unlikely Road to Hollywood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiaries 1969-1979: The Python Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Funniest One in the Room: The Lives and Legends of Del Close Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Stooged to Conquer: The Autobiography of the Leader of the Three Stooges Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neil Simon's Memoirs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good: Larry David and the Making of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dick Van Dyke Show: Anatomy Of A Classic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Elephant to Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hope: Entertainer of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue: A Child of the Fifties Looks Back Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A Life in Movies: Stories from 50 years in Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Days Of Letterman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeter Bogdanovich: Interviews Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rubber Balls and Liquor Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In the Company of Legends Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rickles' Letters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Dirty Life in Comedy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Kid Stays in the Picture: A Notorious Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Entertainers and the Rich & Famous For You
I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Mormon: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Magnolia Story (with Bonus Content) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Me: Elton John Official Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elvis and Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mommie Dearest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Me: An Oprah's Book Club Pick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scrappy Little Nobody Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Taste: My Life Through Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Counting the Cost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman in Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Coreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Black Unicorn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capital Gaines: Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Is This Anything? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Funny Man
6 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Someone said that celebrity bios always reveal the ugly side that famous people try so hard to keep hidden. Very true for this one, which gives myriad examples of the "mean Mel", and a lot fewer of the "nice Mel". No one, including Brooks himself, seems to understand why he's so angry all the time, and I wonder why, as the author points out, Brooks can't write a starring role for a woman to save his life. You'd think that being married to the sublime Anne Bancroft would have given him some inspiration. Mel treats everyone except Sid Caesar poorly, even Bancroft when she's directing her first and only film and he jumps in to yell "Cut!" and to try and fire her cameraman. But his early movies, and Spaceballs, are still forever dear to me, as is his wickedly vulgar Jewish sensibility. Too much of the 553 page narrative is spend on film financials; it's bloated and should have had a better editor.