Age: 100
male
Melvin James Brooks (né Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, and songwriter. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. A recipient of numerous accolades, he is one of 21 entertainers to win the EGOT (which includes an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony). He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2010, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2013, a British Film Institute Fellowship in 2015, a National Medal of Arts in 2016, a BAFTA Fellowship in 2017, and the Honorary Academy Award in 2024. Brooks began his career as a comic and a writer for Sid Caesar's variety show Your Show of Shows(1950–1954). There, he worked with Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart, and Carl Reiner. With Reiner, he co-created the comedy sketch The 2000 Year Old Man. He released several comedy albums, starting with 2000 Year Old Man in 1960. Brooks received five nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album, finally winning in 1999. With Buck Henry, he created the hit satirical spy comedy series Get Smart (1965–1970) on NBC television. Brooks won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Producers (1967). He then rose to prominence by directing a string of successful comedy films such as The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Silent Movie (1976), and High Anxiety (1977). Later, Brooks made History of the World, Part I (1981), Spaceballs (1987), Life Stinks (1991), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). A musical adaptation of his first film, The Producers, ran on Broadway from 2001 to 2007 and earned Brooks three Tony Awards. The project was remade into a musical film in 2005. He wrote and produced the Hulu series History of the World, Part II (2023). Brooks was married to actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until she died in 2005. Their son, Max Brooks, is an actor and author known for his novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2006). In 2021, Mel Brooks published his memoir titled All About Me!. Three of his films are included on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy films of the past 100 years (1900–2000), all of which were ranked in the top 15: Blazing Saddles at number 6, The Producers at number 11, and Young Frankenstein at number 13.
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
for Mel Brooks in Leslie Nielsen: King Of Deadpan
Suggested by jakubduda
We can hardly believe that he played episodic roles in 160 television movies or series and another 63 cinema films, and yet he became known almost exclusively as a white-haired old man from crazy parodies. Leslie William Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and grew up in Tulita. His mother, Mabel Elizabeth (Davies), was Welsh. Father, Ingvard Eversen Nielsen, was a lieutenant in the Canadian Mounted Police, born in Denmark. His acting career began at a much earlier age, when he was forced to lie to his father in order to avoid severe punishment. After moving to Alberta, the Royal Canadian Air Force to pursue a career as a shooter. As the saying goes, all good things will end one day, and just as he was about to go overseas, World War II ended. He then began working as a disc jockey at a radio station in Calgary. In 1948, he got his first small role in an episode of Studio One. He began receiving big offers, playing musicals, science fiction, drama, Ben-Hur, Western, in the acclaimed Tammy and Bachelor. then he became the white-haired all-powerful king of comedy, statesman, secret agent, president, dracula, exorcised devil, Santa, etc. On October 10, 2002, he was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada.
