Decent enough bio from Mel Brooks suffers from being too short - 200-odd pages, but Brook's career is so wide that one feels always as though you're skimming the surface. Also the quality of people interviewed isn't that high (people down the cast list on his later movies, that sort of thing). Still readable, though and will do until a more thorough book somes along. (The best writing on Brooks remains KenTynan's profile in "Show People".)
Brooks has had one of those incredible careers, with major highs and lows - he's shown an ability to pull a rabbit out of the hat like few others: struggling comic then bang Your Show of Shows, then struggling again then bang The 200 Year Old Man, then struggling again then as (seemingly a side trip), bang anOscar for a short the Critic, then bang Get Smart then bang The Producers and an Oscar - only the film flopped, so did The Twelve Chairs then struggling, then bang Blazing Saddles, followed by a relative hot streak... slowly tapering off... but then bang he creates Brooksfilms which was a production company with some really good non-star films toits credit (Frances, The Elephant Man, My Favourite Year, The Fly... any studio would be proud of those), then that and his career tapers off...then biggest bang of them all with the Producers.
Art Linson, in his second book of memoirs, writes of meeting Brooks in the late 90s at Fox and made him sound pathetic and over the hill, which a lot of people would have thought him - but then he made The Producers, so Linson now seems a little foolish.
What other surprises does he have? I'm guessing a one man stage show, but who knows? Like a lot of successful low brow comedians, Brooks is very smart. A great interview guest and very talented - but his career is more a tribute to tenacity and energy as anything else.
Brooks has had one of those incredible careers, with major highs and lows - he's shown an ability to pull a rabbit out of the hat like few others: struggling comic then bang Your Show of Shows, then struggling again then bang The 200 Year Old Man, then struggling again then as (seemingly a side trip), bang anOscar for a short the Critic, then bang Get Smart then bang The Producers and an Oscar - only the film flopped, so did The Twelve Chairs then struggling, then bang Blazing Saddles, followed by a relative hot streak... slowly tapering off... but then bang he creates Brooksfilms which was a production company with some really good non-star films toits credit (Frances, The Elephant Man, My Favourite Year, The Fly... any studio would be proud of those), then that and his career tapers off...then biggest bang of them all with the Producers.
Art Linson, in his second book of memoirs, writes of meeting Brooks in the late 90s at Fox and made him sound pathetic and over the hill, which a lot of people would have thought him - but then he made The Producers, so Linson now seems a little foolish.
What other surprises does he have? I'm guessing a one man stage show, but who knows? Like a lot of successful low brow comedians, Brooks is very smart. A great interview guest and very talented - but his career is more a tribute to tenacity and energy as anything else.
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