Do we like Mel Brooks?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decades of mocking tyrants and no harmful campaigning found, held back from the top only because the record on causes and charity is thin.
Melvin Kaminsky was born in Brooklyn in 1926 and grew up in Williamsburg. His father died when he was two, and his mum raised four boys on her own. He later called roughly ages four or five to nine the happiest time of his life.
He joined the US Army at 17 and ended up in wartime France. Afterwards he worked the Borscht Belt, then landed in Sid Caesar's writers' room, where he met Carl Reiner. Their 2000 Year Old Man sketches were the start of a very long run: The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety.
The Hitler gags are the thread through all of it. He has said he tried to get even with Hitler by taking the mickey out of him. When a heckler objected to Hitler in The Producers musical, he reportedly shot back that he was in World War II and didn't see the heckler there. Protesters have objected to the show over the years, but the target is the tyrant, not his victims.
On the harm check, we found nothing: no digs at LGBTQ+ people, migrants or women in the pages we read, and no slide into conspiracy theories. He has grumbled that comedy has got too politically correct, but in a 2023 interview he said he would no longer use the inflammatory words he once used freely. He also stays off political comedy, saying half the audience would be angry at him. In 2020 he made his first political video, backing Biden because he said Joe likes facts and science.
The gossip file is nearly empty. The only legal fuss we found was a 1970s suit over the name Hedley Lamarr, which is reported only by trivia sites, so we haven't put it on the record. Brooks reportedly said no when his lawyers wanted to fight it. We found no allegations of mistreatment of staff or co-stars, though that is an absence in the reporting we could reach, not a clean bill of health from every source.
The good stuff is mostly the work and the friendships. His bond with Carl Reiner ran for decades, and the new HBO documentary by Judd Apatow leans on it. He's still working too: a Spaceballs sequel is reportedly due in 2027. We couldn't verify any big charity work, so we won't invent any.