It's Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks (8 page)

Melvin’s battlefield habit of making up and singing funny songs made perfect sense to him. It was his antidote to the terror of the wartime situation. “Some guy would say, ‘We’re gonna be killed; we’ll never get out of this war,’ and I’d say, ‘Nobody dies—it’s all made up.’ Because otherwise we’d all get hysterical, and that kind of hysteria—it’s not like sinking, it’s like slowly taking on water, and that’s the panic. Death is the enemy of everyone, and even though you hate Nazis, death is more of an enemy than a German soldier.”

•     •     •

When the war concluded, Melvin found himself with an offer he could not refuse. It was based on his reputation for being his barracks’ goofiest character, an unusual man who could find humor even in deadly chaos and who used his offbeat perceptions to amuse his fellow soldiers and keep up their morale. Kaminsky’s major suggested, “Melvin, why not stay with us and travel around providing the boys with entertainment?” It did not take the soldier long to accept the appealing gig.

Not only was Melvin promoted to the rank of corporal, but he was issued a classic old Mercedes-Benz for his transportation. Rising to his elevated sense of self-importance, Kaminsky asked his commanding officer to assign him a soldier to be his chauffeur. While that request was vetoed, the major agreed to a compromise. Kaminsky was given a small allowance to hire a German civilian driver. Melvin detailed about his new job: “So I found a German fiddle player named Helga, who became my ‘chauffeuse.’ My official title was Noncom in Charge of Special Services, and I did shows for enlisted men and officers’ clubs. Sometimes for a whole division, with tens of thousands of people out front. I told big, lousy jokes. Every time Bob Hope came by, I would write down all his jokes and use them. Nothing frightened me. I sang like Al Jolson. Everybody could do the low Jolson, but I did the high Jolson that nobody else could do—things like ‘I love you as I loved you when you were sweet sixteen.’ People said they appreciated that. My chauffeuse played the fiddle for them, and together we fiddled in the back seat of the Mercedes.”

Melvin had a wonderful time in his new capacity. “I used to go to Frankfurt with my special pass and obtain certain rare cognacs and stick them in my car. There wasn’t a nineteen-year-old soldier who got drunker than I did. Helga played Brahms’ ‘Lullaby’ beautifully. I’d say, ‘Pull over to the curb and play Brahms’ Lullaby.’” But, alas, eventually, the pleasant period came to an end. Kaminsky was advised that his special services duties were being terminated and he would be shipped back to the United States to be processed back into civilian status. Kaminsky hated to have his recent good times end and claims to have countered, “No, no—let me die in the back of the Mercedes with Helga.” Nonetheless, he was ordered back to the States.

•     •     •

As Melvin prepared to return home, he reviewed his relatively brief participation in World War II. “They always say War is hell.’ War isn’t hell. War is loud. Much too noisy. All those shells and bombs going off all around you. Never mind death, a man could lose his hearing. So I used to put Camels in my ears. When I was discharged, the doctor looked in my ears. They wouldn’t let me out of the army because my ears were so brown. I had all this Camel juice inside my inner tubes. I might be the first man to die of emphysema of the inner ear.”

As Melvin observed repeatedly in the coming years, “I’m grateful to the army. Grateful to Hitler too.
The Producers
made me the first Jew in history to make a buck out of Hitler.”

7
Becoming Mel Brooks

After I got out [of the military], I had three choices. I could go to college and hang out a shingle and make $10,000 a year. Another thing for a Jew to do would be to become a salesman.… And [the third choice was] show business. But you got to understand something: Jews don’t do comedy in winter. In summer, all right.

–Mel Brooks, 1975

Like many returning soldiers, Melvin wanted desperately to get on with his life. He realized quickly that relatives and friends on the home front could never understand the horrors of war he had experienced and seen on the battlefields of Europe. The angst and anger he felt at the Axis atrocities he had witnessed or heard about burned deep within the teenaged Kaminsky. Sometimes, it led him to erupt suddenly into fits of fury or unveiled disgust with the world. On other occasions, he lapsed into moods of total hopelessness over the inhumanity of man to his fellow human beings.

Brooks vowed that no matter what, he would never ignore his Jewish heritage (despite his lack of religiousness). Moreover, he swore to himself that he would never allow others to overlook or ignore his pride in being a Jew. (In the coming years, Mel often referred to himself in interviews and conversations as “your humble Jew.” As recently as 2001, he vehemently told 60
Minutes
interviewer Mike Wallace, “Yes, I am a Jew. I
am
a Jew. What about it? What’s so wrong? What’s the matter with being a Jew? I think there’s a lot of that way deep down beneath all the quick Jewish jokes that I do.”)

•     •     •

Once a civilian, Melvin Kaminsky strove to find his way back to some form of “normalcy.” Because all of his brothers had attended Brooklyn College, he felt he owed it to his mother and them to follow suit. He used the G.I. Bill of Rights to enroll. However, over a 10-month period, the ex-soldier scarcely attended classes, and, eventually, he dropped out. Sometimes, to earn spending money, Melvin worked at the Abilene Blouse and Dress Company. At another point, he was employed in a clerical position at the post office. However, his heart remained tied to show business, and he made a few forays back to the Catskills as a tummler.

Then, in late 1946, Melvin Brooks, as he now called himself to one and all, found work with Benjamin Kutcher. The latter was a seedy theater impresario who operated from a rundown office on Manhattan’s West 48th Street that boasted a grimy bay window that looked out onto the street. “For about six months, I did everything for him. I ran errands for him. I put placards in barber shop windows. He was a kind of circuit producer for many little towns around New York, like Red Bank, New Jersey. Wherever there was a little theater, he would book some old play—Alan Dinehart’s
Separate
Rooms, something like that—he didn’t care what it was about. If it had two sets, he wouldn’t make money. If it had more than five characters, he wouldn’t make money. He always wanted a hit, and he never had one. Never.

“He wore a charcoal-gray thick alpaca coat in the summer and the winter and a Broadway producer’s hat all the time—a homburg—and he screwed a lot of little old ladies out of a lot of cash. I loved him. He’d say, ‘Melvin, I’m going to be busy for an hour.’ That meant he was going to screw a little old lady out of some cash. They’d give him checks made out to Cash and say, ‘What’s the name of the play?’ He’d say, ‘
Cash
.’ They’d say, ‘That’s a funny name for a play,’ and he’d say, ‘So is
The Iceman Cometh!’ ”

If this sleazy show business figure sounds familiar, it should. The colorful theatrical figure became the basis for Max Bialystock, the grotesque character around whom Mel Brooks shaped his breakthrough 1968 film,
The Producers.

•     •     •

In the late spring of 1947, through his multitudinous chores with his fourth-rate producer boss, Mel learned of an upcoming summer job opening. It was with a new theater group in Red Bank, on the north shore of New Jersey. Brooks decided to drop everything for the chance to be on stage—or at least to work backstage—with this low-budget troupe, which was based in the auditorium of the local high school. The biggest attraction of this flimsy enterprise was that it was an Equity company. This meant Mel would be mingling with real theater professionals. As it turned out, the venture was operating on a truly meager budget. If the cast/crew—which included comedian/impressionist Will Jordan—each took home more than $6 a week after kicking back most of their modest official salary to the crafty producer, they were lucky indeed.

By now, at the ripe age of 21, World War II veteran Brooks had become increasingly cynical about life. Part of his temperament was overshadowed by a sense of inferiority. Emotionally, Mel was still frozen in adolescence, and seemed unable—or unwilling—to break out of that mode and move on to “normal” maturity. At times, he thought himself a real loser. On the other hand, on those occasions when his ego and confidence were riding high, he felt superior to everyone about him.

One day, the preening director of the Red Bank theater, Percy Montague, chastised Mel repeatedly in front of the company for having dared to commit some minor infraction. Brooks bristled with anger at the injustice of it all—and especially resented the public humiliation. He promptly shifted into an arrogant mode. The previously quiet underling caught the fatuous director off guard when he announced with great bombast, “I will not be the scapegoat!” To emphasize his firm position on the matter, Mel burst into a tirade filled with enough big words and erudite references to convince everyone in earshot that he was not a man to be taken lightly. For this show business neophyte, being taken seriously—even if his frequent bizarre behavior precluded receiving any high degree of respect from associates—was of paramount importance.

By midsummer, management had had enough of the pretentious Percy Montague, and he was given his marching papers. Shortly thereafter, the man in charge of the company announced he was quitting the failing operation. He offered the troupe the option of following suit or, if they so wished, finishing out the season themselves. Mel and his two roommates rose to the occasion. John Roney added production responsibilities to his acting duties, while performer Will Jordan took on some of the managerial tasks. With the post of company director still vacant, Brooks—always at his best when stretched the thinnest—volunteered for that daunting assignment.

To everyones surprise—including his own—Mel blossomed in his position of authority. Although he was inexperienced in the demands of stage directing, he had an instinctive flair for knowing when the cast needed to be guided in one direction or another and how to convey his instructions to his coworkers. Amazingly, the season at Red Bank continued onward with relatively few hitches.

•     •     •

When the summer ended and the troupe departed Red Bank, Mel returned to the city. His absorbing New Jersey theater experience had enticed him into thinking big and trying his hand at acting on the Broadway stage. Summoning up his chutzpah, Mel personally made the rounds to the offices of various established Broadway producers. Typical of Brooks’s brazen determination was his visit to the headquarters of Kermit Bloomgarden, one of the reigning New York theater impresarios. Mel strode cockily into the producer’s office suite, surveyed the crowd (which included some well-known actors) seated in the waiting room, and swept over to the receptionist’s desk. In his best stentorian voice, he announced, “Paul Muni is here and I have to go in three minutes.” The inexperienced secretary jumped to attention and immediately summoned Bloomgarden to greet the visiting stage/film veteran. Kermit emerged into the waiting room, took one look at the young interloper, and said, “This boy is not Paul Muni.” Cheeky Mel was not about to admit defeat. He explained (in a non sequitur), “Muni’s name is Harold Gottwald. I am the real Paul Muni.” Bloomgarden grasped Mel by the collar and said, “You’ve got a lot of moxie. I’m going to remember you.” (Unfortunately or not, Brooks never did get his audition with the august Bloomgarden.)

If Mel could not obtain any actual theater assignments for himself, he at least could bask in the glory of his growing circle of show business comrades. In the process, he reasoned, he could, perhaps, pick up some professional tips and connections. One evening, with too much free time on his hands, Brooks trekked out to New Jersey to see one of his new pals perform in a cabaret. The entertainer was Philadelphian Ronny Graham, a talented entertainer in several guises (including actor, comedian, songwriter, and pianist). After the gig, the seven-years-older Graham, who would become a lifelong pal of Brooks’s, offered to give Mel a ride back to Manhattan.

En route, the duo stopped at an all-night diner that catered to truck drivers. Brooks later recalled, “Ronny was still wearing his stage makeup and some pretty avant-garde clothes, and these big, hairy men all swiveled round and started to stare at us. Some of them even stood up. While we were eating, everything went very quiet. I was terrified. Suddenly, I turned on Ronny like a cobra and said, ‘I want my ring back.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘You
spoke
to that man. Back at the club. Don’t think I didn’t see you speaking to him, because I did.
I want my ring back
.’ And we both went into this berserk faggot row. Finally I picked up my cup of coffee and threw it in his face. Then I flounced out to the car with Ronny right behind me, wiping his eyes and screaming. Some of the truck drivers followed us out… [into] the parking lot. They just stood there, dumbstruck, with their hands on their hips, as we drove off, kissing and making up. I waved at them out of the window.”

8
Hail Caesar!

Sid [Caesar] was a genius, a great comic actor—still is—the greatest mime who ever lived. Only he didn’t impersonate celebrities; he did types.… Sid had this terrific angle in him; he was angry with the world—and so was I. Maybe I was angry because I was a Jew, because I was short, because my mother didn’t buy me a bicycle, because it was tough to get ahead, because I wasn’t God—who knows why. Anyway, if Sid and I hadn’t felt so much alike, I would have been a comic ten years earlier. But he was such a great vehicle for my passion.

–Mel Brooks, 1975

Many media historians credit Milton Berle (1908–2002) as being America’s “Mr. Television.” He was the veteran comic who burst upon the fledgling television scene in 1948 with
Texaco Star Theater.
His weekly NBC-TV comedy/variety show quickly became a national craze and prompted many consumers to purchase their first television sets in order to see his Tuesday night funfest. The onetime child actor (who had been on Broadway, in silent films, and in vaudeville) had spent the 1930s and 1940s as a radio, film, and club personality best known for his amiable buffoonery. Berle relied largely on physical slapstick, snappy patter (rather than anecdotes), and an overbearing presence to capture audiences’ attention. He transferred this forceful performance style directly to the small screen, where his fearless persona mesmerized and bowled over audiences. In his no-holds-barred fashion, he entertained home viewers with his vaudeville-style telecasts. However, he really did
not
create an art form tailored for the intimacy of the new mass medium. That honor belonged to Sid Caesar.