“A Comedy Lesson From Mel Brooks”

Here’s a really nice story from TV writer Marc Flanagan about how his life intersected with one of his childhood comedy heroes producer-actor-writer-director Mel Brooks. It all started with this:

A few years after seeing Mel’s first film and prior to “Blazing Saddles,” I met Mel on New York’s Fire Island. I was staying there for a weekend in September, and my hostess just happened to mention that Mel and Anne Bancroft had a summer place down the beach. I extracted the necessary info from her and proceeded to haunt the place for the balance of the weekend.

The Brooks’ beach house was on pilings, so you could walk under it, and when you emerged your head was level with the Funnyman’s deck. After several attempts, I despaired of every seeing my comic idol but tried once more. I popped up head-high to his decking, and there he was with his wife Anne reading the paper (so brazen,I was young and so I was … stupid).

I was shocked to actually see them sitting there. Mel greeted me with a curious tone. I immediately started gabbing at high speed about how I was a recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama and that one of my teachers, Mildred Dunnock, had told me that she knew the two of you and that if I were ever to meet them to say that I was a friend of Millie’s and to please be kind. And they were.

I decided after two or three minutes that I had already taken enough of their time and I excused myself. They certainly could have called the Fire Island Police (I think they have police there) or told me to beat it, but they were so very gracious and Mel was of course funny and every time he made me laugh, Anne would look over at him and then over to me and smile the most endearing smile.

That was my initial encounter with Mel.

Read the column at The Wrap for the payoff to the story. As an apertif, here’s a story about how Mel met one of his own heroes Cary Grant, told by Mel on The Tonight Show:

What’s your favorite Mel Brooks movie?

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