A deeply textured and compelling biography of comedy giant Mel Brooks,
covering his rags-to-riches life and triumphant career in television,
films, and theater, from Patrick McGilligan, the acclaimed author of
Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane
and Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light.
Oscar, Emmy, Tony, and Grammy award-winner Mel Brooks was behind (and
sometimes in front the camera too) of some of the most influential
comedy hits of our time, including The 2,000 Year Old Man, Get Smart,
The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. But before
this actor, writer, director, comedian, and composer entertained the
world, his first audience was his family.
The fourth and last child of Max and Kitty Kaminsky, Mel Brooks was born
on his family's kitchen table in Brooklyn, New York, in 1926, and was
not quite three-years-old when his father died of tuberculosis. Growing
up in a household too poor to own a radio, Mel was short and homely, a
mischievous child whose birth role was to make the family laugh.
Beyond boyhood, after transforming himself into Mel Brooks, the laughs
that came easily inside the Kaminsky family proved more elusive. His
lifelong crusade to transform himself into a brand name of popular humor
is at the center of master biographer Patrick McGilligan's Funny Man.
In this exhaustively researched and wonderfully novelistic look at
Brooks' personal and professional life, McGilligan lays bare the
strengths and drawbacks that shaped Brooks' psychology, his willpower,
his persona, and his comedy.
McGilligan insightfully navigates the epic ride that has been the famous
funnyman's life story, from Brooks's childhood in Williamsburg tenements
and breakthrough in early television--working alongside Sid Caesar and
Carl Reiner--to Hollywood and Broadway peaks (and valleys). His book
offers a meditation on the Jewish immigrant culture that influenced
Brooks, snapshots of the golden age of comedy, behind the scenes
revelations about the celebrated shows and films, and a telling look at
the four-decade romantic partnership with actress Anne Bancroft that
superseded Brooks' troubled first marriage. Engrossing, nuanced and
ultimately poignant, Funny Man delivers a great man's unforgettable
life story and an anatomy of the American dream of success.
Funny Man includes a 16-page black-and-white photo insert.
