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Mel Brooks Fast Facts

(CNN)Here’s a look at the life of comedian, actor, director, producer, playwright and screenwriter Mel Brooks, best known for comedic farces such as “The Producers,” “Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Spaceballs.”

Birth place: Brooklyn, New York
Birth name: Melvin James Kaminsky
    Father: Max Kaminsky, a process server
    Mother: Kate (Brookman) Kaminsky
    Marriages: Anne Bancroft (1964-2005, her death); Florence Baum (unavailable publicly-1962, divorced)
    Children: with Anne Bancroft: Max; with Florence Baum: Stefanie, Nicky and Eddie
    Education: AttendedVirginia Military Institute as part of his Army training
    Military: US Army, 1944-1945, Corporal
    Other Facts:
    Brooks adopted the last name, “Brooks” from his mother’s maiden name, “Brookman.”
    His parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.
    Brooks is one of an elite few known as EGOT winners. They have all won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award.
    His second wife, actress Anne Bancroft, was almost an EGOT winner herself. She collected Oscar, Emmy and Tony awards before her death from cancer in 2005.
    He has won an Academy Award out of three nominations.
    Has won three Tony Awards out of three nominations.
    Has won four Emmy Awards out of 13 nominations.
    Has won three Grammy Awards and has been nominated 10 times.
    Brooks learned how to play the drums in his youth from famous jazz musician Buddy Rich.
    Brooks makes appearances in his own films as an actor and an occasional voice-over artist. He played character roles in “Blazing Saddles,” “High Anxiety,” “Spaceballs” and “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”
    Timeline:
    1944-1945 – Serves in the US Army as a combat engineer during World War II.
    1949-1958 – Begins his career as a comedy writer in television and theatre, writing for “Broadway Revue,” “Your Show of Shows,” “Caesar’s Hour,” “Sid Caesar Invites You,” along with “All American” and “Shinbone Alley.” During his time with “Your Show of Shows,” he works with Neil Simon and Carl Reiner. Reiner and Brooks share a lifelong friendship and partnership.
    1960 – Brooks and Reiner release the comedy album, “The 2,000-Year-Old Man.” The hit spawns four follow-up albums, an animated TV special and several books.
    1965-1970 – Teams up with writer Buck Henry to create the hit television comedy, “Get Smart.”
    June 4, 1967 – Receives his first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Variety, for “The Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris Special.”
    November 1968 – “The Producers” is released in theaters, making it the first motion picture Brooks wrote and directed independently.
    April 14, 1969 – Wins an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, for “The Producers.”
    1974 – Forms the production company, “Brooksfilms.” “Coming Attractions” is the company’s first film, and “Fatso,” “The Elephant Man,” “History of the World: Part I,” “To Be or Not to Be” and “The Fly” follow.
    1997-1999 – Wins three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, for “Mad About You.”
    February 24, 1999 – Brooks and Reiner win the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album, for “The 2,000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000.”
    April 19, 2001 – Opening night of “The Producers” on Broadway. The production adapted from Brooks’ 1968 film goes on to win a total of 12 Tony Awards.
    June 3, 2001 – Brooks wins three Tony Awards: Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical, for “The Producers.”
    February 27, 2002 – Receives two Grammy Awards: Best Long Form Music Video category, for “Recording ‘The Producers: A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks'” shared with Susan Froemke and Peter Gelb, and for “The Producers” in the Best Musical Show Album category.
    November 8, 2007 – “Young Frankenstein” premieres on Broadway, making it the second musical adaptation of one of his films.
    December 29, 2009 – Receives the Kennedy Center Honors.
      April 23, 2010 – Receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
      June 6, 2013 – Recipient of the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

      Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/18/us/mel-brooks-fast-facts/index.html

      Tony awards: Dear Evan Hansen takes centre stage at Broadway’s big night

      The social media musical with a pop score dominated with six wins, Hello, Dolly! also shone, while host Kevin Spaceys performance divided opinion

      The offbeat musical about teen angst, suicide and the tyranny of social media, Dear Evan Hansen, was the shining star of the Tony Awards on an evening that celebrated a record-breaking Broadway theater season while lamenting the Trump administrations move to axe funding for the arts.

      As Dear Evan Hansen took six awards, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 fizzled out on the night, only winning two awards despite being the most nominated show with 12 nods.

      Nothing this season could match Hamiltons sweep last year and the musical is still a monster hit on Broadway. But Dear Evan Hansen was the clear darling of the season for Tony voters, who gave it more awards than expected, while also delivering some other surprises on Sunday.

      One of those was the award for best director of a musical, which had been expected to be another win for Dear Evan Hansen but was instead given to first-time director Christopher Ashley for his work on Come From Away.

      That musical, about the welcome a tiny town in Newfoundland gives to hundreds of air passengers stranded there on September 11, 2001, had been seen as a strong rival to Dear Evan Hansen, but largely lost out on the night.

      Alongside Ashleys unexpected win came another surprise with the award for best director of a play going to Rebecca Taichman for Indecent, Pulitzer-winning playwright Paula Vogels Broadway debut.

      The best director prize had been expected to go to Oslo, which won for best new play, or A Dolls House, Part 2. So when Taichman was named, she was visibly stunned. Am I dreaming? Im in a state of total shock, she said, upon reaching the stage.

      In the press area, she ripped into the Trump administration for its goal of shutting down the National Endowment for the Arts, as proposed in the budget President Donald Trump recently sent to Congress.

      Cutting the NEA I dont understand it … If you actually want to decimate culture, community, dialogue, and empathy, thats how you do it. [The NEA is] beleaguered already; to cut it more is such an audacious and ridiculous move, and it says very clearly and very loudly, We do not value the creation of art, she said.

      Sex in the City star Cynthia Nixon, who won the Tony for best featured actress in a revival, for her role in Little Foxes, also got political, both on stage and off.

      Nixon did not name Trump, but said the story of a Lillian Hellmans Little Foxes, about an aggressive family seeking great riches, is eerily prescient.

      She added: 80 years ago [Hellman] wrote, there are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it and other people who just stand around and watch them do it. My love, my gratitude and my undying respect go out to all the people in 2017 who are refusing to just stand and watch them do it.

      Afterwards, she expanded on her point to the press off stage. The arts are not funded very well in this country compared to other places in this world. Its important to fund the arts on every level as a means by which a civilization is gauged, she said.

      Back inside at the awards ceremony, held at Radio City Music Hall in New York, upon receiving her award, Nixon had thanked her wife, Christine Marinoni, who was in the audience.

      Most winners on the night, gay and straight, thanked their significant others with an ease and confidence that was in sharp contrast to strained jokes host Kevin Spacey made about rumours surrounding his own sexuality.

      Early on in his hosting, he joked with Whoopi Goldberg as she pops out of a closet on stage: How long have you been in that closet? She responded: Well, Kevin, it depends on who you ask. Both actors have been subject to years of speculation about their sexuality but have never come out as gay.

      With June being pride month and the 2016 Tonys overshadowed by the massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Spacey was roundly scolded by many on social media.

      Meanwhile, two of the most famous stars who were deemed shoo-ins to win, Kevin Kline and Bette Midler, duly did. Kline, in winning best lead actor in a play, also joined Nixon and Taichman in praising the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities, two organizations without which none of us would be here, he said.

      Midler, who had declined to sing at the awards but presented one and won one, stole the show. After a subtle political dig about the stage lifting spirits in these terrible, terrible times she managed to silence the orchestra as it tried to play her off when she went over time with her acceptance speech for best actress in a revival of a musical, in Hello, Dolly! Shut that crap off, she yelled, to loud cheers.

      Earlier in the evening, before the awards ceremony, it emerged that major sponsors are pulling out of New Yorks Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar from the Public Theater because of the resemblance of the character of the emperor to Donald Trump.

      But in an uproarious night at Radio City Music Hall, the Dear Evan Hansen winners refrained from alluding to politics in their speeches and were simply full of passion for their craft, as their young stars swept the night.

      Lead Ben Platt, as expected, won best actor in a new musical. The show won best book, and hit songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who won the Oscar for best original song for City of Stars in La La Land, won the Tony for best score for Dear Evan Hansen, too.

      Then, in a testament to tenacity, Jane Greenwood won the Tony for best costume design of a play, for Little Foxes, her first win after 21 nominations, dating back to 1965. Veteran actor James Earl Jones also won the lifetime achievement Tony.

      Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/jun/11/tony-awards-dear-evan-hansen-kevin-spacey-broadway