STORY BY
STEPHEN VRATTOS
Photos by Dawn Steinberg
Iand Stephen Vrattos f residents found the Arcade
quieter than usual the evening
of Thursday, November 30, the
reason could be directly traced to
the large downstairs card room by
the theater entrance, where entertainment
historian John Kenrick
was giving his latest presentation
for the University Club. The subject
for the über-popular lecturer was
none other than American actor,
writer, producer, director, comedian
and composer, Mel Brooks.
The son of Russian and Polish
immigrant Jews, born Melvin
Kaminsky, June 28, 1926, in
Brooklyn, the legendary funny man
began his career oddly enough as
a drummer and pianist at various
Borscht Belt resorts and nightclubs
in the Catskill Mountains, during
which time he changed his name
to the one more familiarly known
around the world today. When one
of the club’s regular comedians
was too sick to perform one night,
Brooks took to the stage and began
working stand-up.
It was good friend Sid Caesar,
who in 1949, helped land Brooks
his fledgling job in television comedy
writing on the short-lived NBC
series, “The Admiral Broadway
Revue,” which paid him $50 a
week. The series barely lasted six
months. Fortunately, the next year
(1950) Caesar created “Your Show
of Shows,” and hired Brooks to
write alongside such other comic
luminaries as Carl Reiner and Neil
Simon.
Brooks and Reiner became
fast friends, and when not
working, began to improvise comedy
routines with Reiner playing
the straight man interviewer, who
would set Brooks up as anything
from a Tibetan monk to an astronaut.
From these bits, sprang the
duo’s famous “2000-Year-Old
Man” comic masterpiece, wherein
the titled dual millennial spoke of
his witnessing crucifixion of Jesus
Christ, having been married several
hundred times and siring “over
forty-two thousand children, and
not one comes to visit me.” When
Reiner created “The Dick Van
Dyke Show” in 1961, he based the
character of Buddy Sorel, played
by Morey Amsterdam, on Brooks.
Brooks began his movie career
in 1968 with a bizarre and unconventional
idea about a musical
comedy about Adolf Hitler, “The
Producers,” starring Zero Mostel
and Gene Wilder, for which Brooks
won an Academy Award for “Best
Original Screenplay,” before his
career took a sudden downturn
with double movie flops, “The
Twelve Chairs” and “She Stoops
to Conquer.”
But in 1972, Brooks rebounded
with his greatest success yet,
directing and co-writing “Blazing
Saddles.” The second-highest
grossing film of 1974 in the U.S.,
the western spoof earned $119.5
million worldwide, garnered three
Oscar nominations and won the
Writers Guild of America Award
Kenrick chats with an audience
member in his own inimitable style
for “Best Comedy Written Directly
for the Screen.”
Brooks never looked back, producing,
writing and directing one
hit comic send-up after another,
including “Young Frankenstein
(1974),” “Space Balls (1987)”
and “Robin Hood: Men in Tights
(1993).” In 2001, he produced
and wrote the Broadway musical
adaptation of “The Producers,”
composing the music as well. The
show was the Great White Way’s
biggest smash, breaking the Tony
award record with 12 wins, an
honor previously held for 37 years
by “Hello, Dolly!” at 10 wins.
As with all his audio-visual presentations,
Kenrick’s are so much
more than a simple regurgitation
of historic facts. They're filled with
rare photos and film clips, interviews
and anecdotes, and Kenrick’s
signature animated, jubilant style.
During the traditional QA finale,
he was asked his thoughts on the
banning of road productions of
“The Producers” in recent years.
Kenrick was quick to point out
these closures were not a result of
negative views on Brooks’s portrayal
of Jews, but rather threats
by local Neo-Nazi groups for the
comic legend’s portrayals of Nazis.
“If it’s upsetting Neo-Nazis,” he
said, “It’s a good thing!”
Our Mr. Brooks
Crowd pleaser John Kenrick returns to tackle comic legend
Kenrick prepares his multi-media
presentation
The ever-passionate speaker before
a screen shot of his newly-updated
world-wide bestseller
36 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ January 2018