Mel Brooks. United States
film director, born Melvin Kaminsky on
June 28,
1926, in Brooklyn, New York best known as a director of broad film
farces and film parodies.
He started out in showbusiness as a stand-up comic, before becoming a comedy writer for television, working on Your Show of Shows. With Buck Henry, he created the successful TV series Get Smart. He later moved into film, working as an actor, director, writer and producer. His most recent success has been a transfer of his film, The Producers, to the Broadway stage.
Brooks is one of a select group who have received an Oscar, Emmy (as both an actor and writer), Tony[?] and Grammy.
- The Producers (1968) (writer, director; Academy Award, best original screenplay)
- The Twelve Chairs[?] (1970) (writer, director, actor)
- Young Frankenstein[?] (1974) (writer, director)
- Blazing Saddles (1974) (writer, director, actor)
- Silent Movie[?] (1976) (writer, director, actor)
- High Anxiety[?] (1978) (writer, director, actor)
- History of the World, Part I[?] (1981) (writer, director, actor)
- To Be or Not to Be[?] (1983) (actor)
- Spaceballs (1987) (writer, director, actor)
- Life Stinks[?] (1991) (writer, director, actor)
- Robin Hood: Men in Tights[?] (1993) (writer, director, actor)
- Dracula: Dead and Loving It[?] (1995) (writer, director, actor)