It's Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks (22 page)

Fortunately for the resilient Mel, this latest of many career setbacks would soon be supplanted by new show business opportunities that proved that Brooks, indeed, had nowhere to go but up.

Mel Brooks earned his first official TV credit as a member of the writing team on
Your Show of Shows
(1950–1954), a variety series costarring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.
Courtesy of JC Archives

Florence Baum, a successful dancer in Broadway musicals and on TV variety programs, in the early 1950s. She and Mel Brooks wed on November 26, 1953.
From the authors collection

The stellar members of the Writers’ Room on TVs
Caesar’s Hour
circa 1956. Front row: Gary Belkin, Sheldon Keller, Michael Stewart, and Mel Brooks. Back row: Neil Simon, Mel Tolkin, and Larry Gelbart.
Courtesy of NBC/Photofest

Anne Bancroft, Cary Grant, and Mel Brooks attending the Hollywood premiere of Bancroft’s screen vehicle
The Miracle Worker
(1962).
Courtesy of Photofest

A mid-1960s TV appearance by Mel Brooks as the venerable 2000 Year Old Man and Carl Reiner as the intrepid reporter.
Courtesy of JC Archives

Mel Brooks cocreated the hugely successful TV series
Get Smart
(1965–1970). Pictured are four of the show’s regulars: Barbara Feldon, Don Adams, Dick Gautier (lying down), and Edward Platt.
Courtesy of JC Archives

Moviemaker Mel Brooks gives Dom DeLuise a few pointers for
The Twelve Chairs
(1970), shot on location in Yugoslavia.
Courtesy of JC Archives

Mel Brooks wore many hats in his breakthrough film,
Blazing Saddles
(1974). He is seen here in one of his roles in the comedy hit—a Yiddish-speaking Native American chieftain.
Courtesy of JC Archives

Gene Wilder (as Dr. Frankenstein) gives Peter Boyle (as the monster) a helping hand in
Young Frankenstein
(1974).
Courtesy of JC Archives

Bernadette Peters, Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, and Dom DeLuise hope for the best in a scene from
Silent Movie
(1976).
Courtesy of JC Archives

Mel Brooks and Madeline Kahn disguise themselves as an elderly Jewish couple to elude airport security in
High Anxiety
(1977).
Courtesy of JC Archives

Mel Brooks as the French monarch Louis XVI proves why “it’s good to be the king” in
History of the World: Part I
(1981). The object of his lust is the buxom Pamela Stephenson.
Courtesy of JC Archives