Mel Brooks: The 100 Year Old Man

At 100 years of age today, Mel Brooks might stand with a cane sometimes, but he still stands—as a testament to the value and power of laughter, the comedy legend now celebrates his 100th birthday today, June 28.

The “Young Frankenstein” director has previously opened up about his secret to long life, and it turns out, it has a lot to do with his sense of humor.

“I think laughing keeps you healthy and happy,” Brooks, who’s best known for being at the helm of a number of boundary-pushing films including “Blazing Saddles” and “The Producers,” said in an interview with People Magazine.

For Brooks, age is apparently just a number. Last year, it was announced that Brooks is reprising his role as the beloved character Yogurt in the upcoming 2027 sequel to Spaceballs, his 1987 Star Wars parody film. He was also the subject of HBO documentary Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!, released in January.

His gift for comedy came from some dark places. Born Melvin James Kaminsky in a Brooklyn tenement in 1926, Brooks was the son of Jewish parents, his father’s family being German Jews from Gda?sk, Poland and his mother hailing from Kiev, Russia. A small and sickly child often bullied, his schoolboy torment added fuel to the fires of anger ignited by the death of his father to tuberculosis when he was only two.

“There’s an outrage there. I may be angry at God, or at the world, for that.” Brooks has said of his father’s death. “And I’m sure a lot of my comedy is based on anger and hostility. Growing up in Williamsburg, I learned to clothe it in comedy to spare myself problems—like a punch in the face.”

Anger, hostility, and violence became a through line for Brooks during his life and career. He studied drums under the notoriously short tempered legend Buddy Rich as a boy, and he served in the Army during World War II where he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. His military service again influenced his view on life via the bodies he would see by the roadside, wrapped in mattress covers and stacked in ditches.

“Death is the enemy of everyone, and even though you hate Nazis, death is more of an enemy than a German soldier.” Brooks has said. Without question, however, he had no patience for hate: his service was marked with stunts such as singing Al Jolson songs at the Nazis via a bullhorn and a stint in the stockade for smashing an anti-Semitic heckler over the head with a mess kit.

After the war, Brooks chose to pursue show business by working and performing in the Borscht Belt at various resorts until he found his place in television. Writing for Sid Caesar’s Your Show Of Shows, Brooks made a name for himself as a comedian and a character. Working alongside luminaries like Carl Reiner and Neil Simon, he inspired Buddy Sorell on The Duck Van Dyke Show played by Morey Amsterdam and Ira Stone in Simon’s play Laughter On The 23rd Floor.

Though working for Sid Caesar caused Brooks so much stress he was driven nearly to the brink of the most harmful mental health crises, his association with Carl Reiner would be the first step on his rise to fame with the creation of the character for which he is still most lovingly known: the 2,000 Year Old Man.

On the subject of his mortality, Brooks said:

“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 told the Associated Press in 2021.

“I enjoy living…I’d like to do it as long as I can.”

This is what Mel Brooks said to the Associated Press in 2021, and today reaches the rare and enviable milestone of his 100th birthday. Beyond lending proof to just how much he does, in fact, enjoy living, this particular centennial celebration provides a unique snapshot of not just Hollywood as a whole, but of the human condition. Within his career is the evolution of showbusiness, comedy, and celebrity at large, but within his life overall is proof that laughter, joy, and light can come from the very darkest shadows, the depths of anger and pain, and innumerable other very strange places indeed.

So here’s to the 100 Year Old Man. Mel, if you ever read this: good on you. Thank you.