Mel Brooks is celebrating his centennial birthday today. The comedy legend behind some of cinema’s greatest spoofs, including Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and The Producers, turned 100 on Sunday, June 28.
Brooks was born Melvin James Kaminsky in Brooklyn on June 28, 1926, and fought in the Second World War, where he served as a combat engineer for the U.S. Army.
After returning home, he found success writing for television before becoming one of Hollywood’s most influential comic filmmakers, earning an Academy Award, multiple Emmys, Grammys and Tonys during a career spanning more than seven decades.
In an interview with People magazine earlier, Brooks revealed the secret to his longevity.
“I think laughing keeps you healthy and happy,” he told the publication.
Even as his age hits triple digits, Brooks has remained an active creative force. He is set to reprise his famous role as Yogurt in the upcoming Spaceballs reboot, produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Josh Gad, planned for release in 2027. He is also lending his voice to the forthcoming animated film The Land of Sometimes.
Brooks’s life and legacy were explored in the two-part HBO documentary Mel Brooks: The 99-Year-Old Man!, released in January.
“It’s an amazing sound, people laughing at something I created,” Brooks told People ahead of the documentary. “Making comedy is a great job. It keeps you sane and happy. It gives you a reason to be alive.”
In May, Brooks announced that he was donating thousands of his documents and photographs to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York.
“I’ve always been proud to say that I make people laugh for a living,” Brooks said then in a statement. “So, knowing that my work will have a home at comedy’s national archive and continue making people laugh leaves me with a deep sense of pride.”
Brooks has sometimes made mortality a joke, too. In a 1980s sketch, he created a coin-operated gravestone for himself that played a videotaped message. It began: “I was Mel Brooks, one of the funniest little Jews to walk the Earth.”
When asked in a 2021 interview with The Associated Press if he thought much about death, Brooks said no.
“I gave up after 60 thinking about it because if I did, I’d be thinking about it all the time. So I don’t think about it much. When and if it happens it’s going to be a sad day — for everybody but me,” Brooks said, laughing.
“I enjoy living,” he added. “I’d like to do it as long as I can.”
Additional reporting by The Associated Press
