Brooks, Mel (1926– )
US film director, producer, actor, and comedian. His films, known for their slapstick and verbal humour, include The Producers (1967; Academy Award for Best Screenplay), Blazing Saddles (1974), and Young Frankenstein (1974).
Brooks was a stand-up comic, gaining a wide audience with his record album The 2,000-Year-Old Man (1960), and a television writer before he entered the film industry. In 2001 he turned The Producers into a successful Broadway musical. The production won 12 Tony awards, including the award for Best Musical, before it closed in 2007.
| Other films include Silent Movie (1976), High Anxiety (1977), History of the World Part I (1980), Spaceballs (1987), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). He was married to actor Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005. |
