Now let me interrupt here to explain something. I’m gonna tell you the god’s honest truth. I realized that the recipient of the AFI award, if they are still alive, usually comes back to say some nice words the following year about the new AFI honoree. I just didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to have to come back here, wear a tuxedo and tight shiny patent leather shoes, eat that dry chicken washed down with not the very best wine, and—no offense—make believe I was enjoying the evening. So instead, I devised a plan to both do the job and not have to come back.
This is what I said:
“…with your permission I’d like to preemptively toast next year’s honoree. So I don’t have to come back, okay? Listen, he or she is a remarkable creative force who has had a huge impact on my life and career. I’ve known him or her for over twenty years and can honestly say that he or she is the only person that I’ve never been jealous of, because when somebody is truly talented you just have to salute it! So here’s to you for a well-deserved award, and to the AFI—you finally got it right!”
I got a standing ovation. I picked up my award, said good night, blew some kisses, and made my way offstage.
…But a year later, my escape plan was ruined! I got a call from the next recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, the one and only Jane Fonda. She had heard my not coming back speech but begged me to please attend. Who could say no to Jane Fonda? I was there.
If that wasn’t enough, the following year the AFI recipient was Steve Martin, who chose me from the list of previous winners to present the award to him. Once again I just couldn’t say no. I was always a big fan of Steve’s incredibly funny and insightful comedy. So I suffered the dry chicken, the tight shoes, the bad wine, and went to give a much-deserved honor to the gifted and brilliant Steve Martin.
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Even at an age where many people are retired I am always looking for new projects to exercise my mind and engage my creativity. Because in my experience if you’re not working, you’re not really alive. In 2010 Dick Cavett, who I had done so many interviews with on TV through the years and who is also a good friend, asked me to join him for a live event onstage to promote his new book: Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, and Assorted Hijinks. Dick, just like Johnny Carson, had a knack for getting the crazy best out of me. The back and forth was always hilarious. So knowing that, I decided to get a camera crew to tape the evening. I wanted to have a record of what he called the “hijinks.” I turned it into a special that premiered on HBO with a new title: Mel Brooks and Dick Cavett Together Again.
I had so much fun making that show that I just kept doing it. My second special for HBO was Mel Brooks Strikes Back! With my old friend Alan Yentob from the BBC interviewing me onstage. For my third special I wanted to do something that was not an interview, something that was closer to a one-man show on Broadway. So I booked the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood and said, “Get me my tux and roll out a piano!”
I extolled the highlights of my adventures in show business from the Borscht Belt to Broadway and then I picked up a microphone and sang my heart out. May I say immodestly that the show was a resounding success. I think I enjoyed it as much as the audience.
Just recently I worked with HBO again to bring my old friend Alan Yentob’s unusual and amazing documentary covering our long working friendship to American audiences. Mel Brooks: Unwrapped spans from his first interview with me at Twentieth Century Fox when I was directing History of the World, Part I all the way through present day with the two of us still hanging out and having laughs together.
It was around this time that I decided that I missed the sound of laughter emanating from a live audience. There is just nothing like it! So I started traveling around to different places, different theaters in different cities, and I’d get onstage and tell them a lot of what I’ve told you in the book: how I came to be Mel Brooks. I was lucky to have a great accomplice in Kevin Salter, my producer from Mel Brooks Live at the Geffen. Kevin would bring me onstage and ask me just the right questions that would always bring forth answers that would spark explosions of laughter. They were great nights, filling me with the joy of thousands of people all laughing together. I played such storied venues as the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in D.C., the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Broadway, twice at the Chicago Theatre, twice at the Wynn in Las Vegas, and what a thrill it was to see my name on the marquee of Radio City Music Hall with a wonderful SOLD OUT next to it.
Taking a well-deserved bow onstage at the Geffen Playhouse. (Forgive the immodesty.)
I’d usually start the evening by playing one of my movies before I took the stage, most often Blazing Saddles. It was so enjoyable standing offstage in the wings and listening to the audience crack up at some of those dangerous gags in the film. Today my movies are usually played on small TV sets in people’s homes. But there is nothing like seeing your movie on that incredibly huge silver screen and getting the fantastic communal laughter that it was meant for. Talk about an opening act—you couldn’t beat Blazing Saddles.
Toward the end of the evening Kevin would ask the audience for questions and sometimes I would get really lucky with an answer that would bring down the house.
Pretty thrilling for a kid from Brooklyn to be headlining at Radio City Music Hall.
For instance, I remember one night an audience member shouted out: “Mel! What do you wear—boxers or briefs?”
I shouted back: “DEPENDS!”
I’ve gotta say, the theater shook with a veritable earthquake of laughter in response. (Actually, I don’t wear Depends…but as I get on in years I might not just be telling a joke.)
Another common question was: “Mel, what’s your secret to a long life?”
I always replied: “Don’t die.”
Boy, that really landed. I still think that the best thing in the world is saying something funny, and then having an audience explode with laughter. I will never grow tired of that. It’s magical.
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The famous author of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, once said, “There are no second acts.”