It's Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks

by James Robert Parish

This book traces the extraordinary life and career of Mel Brooks, who has ridden a wave of show business success perhaps unsurpassed by anyone of his generation. Offering many insights into the wacky world of Brooks and his many collaborators, as well as an intimate look into his successful marriage to the brilliant and beautiful actress Anne Bancroft, It's Good to Be the King might just be the most delightful, engaging, and entertaining biography you'll ever read.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Humor, History, Comedy

344 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2007

About the author

James Robert Parish, a former entertainment reporter, publicist, and book series editor, is the author of many published major biographies and reference books on the entertainment industry including Whitney Houston: We Will Always Love You; The Hollywood Book of Extravagance; It’s Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks; The Hollywood Book of Breakups; Fiascos: Hollywood’s Iconic Flops; The Hollywood Book of Love; Jet Li; The Encyclopedia of Ethnic Groups in Hollywood; The Hollywood Book of Death; Gus Van Sant; Whoopi Goldberg; Rosie O’Donnell’s Story; The Unofficial “Murder, She Wrote” Casebook; Today’s Black Hollywood; Let’s Talk! America’s Favorite TV Talk Show Hosts; Prison Pictures from Hollywood; Prostitution in Hollywood Films; The Great Cop Pictures; Ghosts and Angels in Hollywood Films; Pirates and Seafaring Swashbucklers on the Hollywood Screen; Gays and Lesbians in Mainstream Cinema; Hollywood’s Great Love Teams; and The Fox Girls. Mr. Parish is a frequent oncamera interviewee on cable and network TV for documentaries on the performing arts. The author resides in Studio City, California.

Reviews

[Toni · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author mistakenly asserts the Brooks was the inspiration for Neil Simon's "Odd Couple," which isn't true and would have been incredibly easy for the author to check as even IMDB has the accurate story. Instead, he includes a boring, meandering story just to make his little error. And that's pretty much how the entire book goes. The ONLY reason to read this book is because there isn't another Mel Brooks biograpy, and even then it's a close-run match.

[Vince · Rating 4 out of 5]

No doubt is one hard driven complex funny lunatic. Nice revealing book about a complex man. The author touches on the failures as well as the triumphs which makes Brook's life more real.

[john lambert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting read because Mell Brooks is one zany guy. He was the youngest in his family and did anything to get attention. In a real sense, he never stopped. The book starts with his childhood, they were poor, and follows Mel as he kept rising in entertainment. He was wildly determined, ambitious and funny. He would do anything to be the center of attention and he wanted desperately to be in comedy. He did well, his net worth today is $100 million!

The early career with Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner are the best part of the book because they were all starting out (though Sid was a star) and the writer's rooms sound like comedy heaven. The book slows during the last 1/3 mainly because the author relates Mel making many movies, most not very successful, so it's routine. Mel did this and Mel did that.

I think two of his movies are wonderful. The Producers and Young Frankenstein. They are great. I was never a big fan of Blazing Saddles. He made probably 10 more movies, which I will have to watch. I have seen parts of Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which I thought was sort of funny, but never all of it. I'll see if he's funnier than people and critics thought when the movies first came out. I did see The Producers on Broadway and it was a riot.

Mel had a wonderful marriage (his second) with Anne Bancroft. Oddly, the book barely mentions Anne as Mrs. Robinson.

Mel was in a lot of TV shows, trying to keep in the public eye and make a little dough. He was on Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett, to name a few. He was in several episodes of Larry David's, Curb Your Enthusiasm, 4th season. I sort of remember them but will now watch that season again. His wife, Anne Bancroft (born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano---Can you get more Italian than that?), was in the season finale. And who doesn't love Larry David?

The author is good. He's written a lot of Hollywood books.

[Stacey Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mel Brooks had an incredible life. Seems like he created it himself by being the crazy, annoying, pushy neurotic personality he was....always "on", the life of the party, had to be the center of attention. All of that got him his introduction into show business and kept him going all the years. Married and divorced young and not prepared he didn't really find love until he met Anne Bancroft. Together they faced the world head on as a team. Mel also surrounded himself with others he could trust and people he respected like Sid Caesar & Carl Reiner. Learning what he could from the men who made it in early TV he went on to become a talented writer, director, actor, business owner, etc.. This account of his life is thorough and entertaining. It gives you a peek into a secluded party that only a chosen few have been invited to letting you feel for a while that you're a part of something very special.

[Marsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think there was nothing wrong, per se, with this book; it's just not my genre. However, it was great for book club! It got us into speaking about comedy in general and about Mel Brooks in general, and what's wrong with comedy right now overall, and some good sources of watching old comedies, and generally we just discussed some of Mel Brooks's successes and some of his personality quirks and failings. As I say, it was a great book club book. The book itself was "eh", but it led to good discussion. And yes: Mel Brooks is a complex guy with a complex personality. Those aspects were touched on in this book, and you get the idea that they were part of the point of actually writing the book, but the subtitle – _The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks_ – points out the humor in his life as opposed to the strangeness. It was okay.

[Nancy Thomsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wait a minute ... A phrase commonly used by Mel as well as the 2000 year old man.

I did not realize until after I finished reading this book that Mel did not write it. I was so excited to read about the writers for Sid Caesar and their legendary antics that I just did not pay attention. Now I understand why I was disappointed in this book. That is not to say that this book is not worth picking up; it definitely is. But I had just read Carl Reiner's book about his early days in TV and Bob Newhart's as well, all of which I have have enjoyed, however some more than others. I felt that there was something missing here that I couldn't put my finger on and now I know that it was the absence of Mel himself that caused this "lack" of a certain something that I felt. But what the heck. He is the king.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

One glaring omission: How the hell do you write a biography on Mel Brooks and NOT have a chapter (or more) completely dedicated to Blazing Saddles, arguably the best in the Brooks oeuvre? There are a few scant sentences peppered throughout the book about the film but nothing else. Yet, To Be or Not to Be gets an entire chapter to itself? Brooks's guest shot on "Mad About You" got more ink in this book than Blazing Saddles.

Also, from everything I've ever read and heard, The Odd Couple by Neil Simon was inspired by Simon's brother Danny and NOT, as the author attests, Mel Brooks.

Three stars for these two reasons. Other than that, pretty good.

[Charles DiFazio · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Author does a masterful job of weaving the humor of Mel Brooks with the seriousness of Brook's
ambitions and the ups and downs of his very creative life. When I finished reading, I believed that if I met Mel Brooks, I would know his deepest persona. I highly recommend this book for those who have enjoyed Mel Brooks over the years.

[Keith CARTER · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent read, a book which gives us in the UK a side of Mel Brooks that we would not necessarily have seen. he is an extremely complex in character, overly protective of his writing and his film directing, whilst making us laugh out loud with his antics. he has been one of my comedy heroes since the late 60s and I would recommend this book to any comedy fan.

[Howard Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

What started out to be an interesting and seemingly honest appraisal of the self-proclaimed comic genius just turned into a dull, nasty look at a hyper ego with an amazing amount of filler between the moments of storytelling.

[Joseph Hageman · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a well written and entertaining biography about a really brilliant man.

[June Moriarty · Rating 1 out of 5]

The one star is for the subject of the book, the great Mel Brooks. Unfortunately, I have nothing for the author, James Robert Parish.

Yes, I had read other reviews on this site that said Mr. Parish could not write his way out of a paper bag but I have loved Mel Brooks since I saw The Producers when I was very young and wanted to know more about what makes him tick. Still, nothing prepared me for the awkward, clumsy sentence structure or the poor workmanship of Mr. Parish’s writing style. Did an editor even once look at this thing before it went to print? I honestly doubt it.

And although Mr. Parish lists a seven page bibliography at the back of the book, the research feels so thin, that you could get the same bland “and then he did …” information from a Wikipedia page. At least on the Wiki page it would be in an order that makes sense and would cover his entire body of work. This book has no life, no verve, no guts at all. How in the world do you take someone as vibrant as Mel Brooks and make him seem so petty, small and dull? Mr. Parish overlooks whole films or rushes by them so quickly you would barely classify them an an honorable mention. One and a half pages on Blazing Saddles? Really? I wanted to be a fly on the wall of that writer’s room. And yet, if you blinked, you completely missed it. In fact, Spaceballs, not my personal favorite, but a huge hit and financial windfall for Mr. Brooks, was not discussed at all.

There was really no information, no new anecdotes, that I had not heard casually over the years. And to get information just plain wrong, as others have mentioned about The Odd Couple, is inexcusable.

It’s such a disappointment because if anyone is alive on this planet (at least for now and hopefully for a long time yet to come), it is Mel Brooks. He is a firecracker of a human being, who pursued his dream of making people laugh like a house on fire. He simply would not be denied. That’s what it takes to succeed in show business, in fact, to succeed in any real profession but I didn’t need to read this drippy biography to know that. I have seen and read it in every interview and guest appearance Mr. Brooks has ever made. But Mr. Parish digs about as deep as a Shepard’s pie.

Well, in the end, after slogging through this book, I came away with very little to show for it. It’s hard to believe that this is the only biography on Mel and I find that kind of sad. He really deserves better.

Oh, and one more thing, no one who is in the business calls it Tinseltown. Mr. Parish uses this term to describe the business and the city of Hollywood repeatedly. It is a demeaning, derogatory moniker used by people on the outside who desperately want to be on the inside. Over my life I have known movie stars, studio heads, actors, technicians, animators, you name it, and not one of them has ever used this word to describe the industry or the city. It says nothing accurate about the town but loads about the person who uses it.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realize that Mel Brooks took his work quite so seriously. I also didn't know how hard he had to work to break into show business. I suppose I should have. Most entertainers are only overnight sensations after they put in years of hard work and paying dues.

I learned a few things about screenwriting and writing comedy, in particular. After writing a script in 30 days myself, working mornings and weekends, I thought someone that devoted full time to it would be able to knock one out in a few months. This especially seemed true of Mel Brooks movies, which seem so unrehearsed at times. But no, he took years to write most of them. And he usually did it with a writing partner or two. Comedy is probably easier to write when you have another sense of humor around to fill in your blind spots.

The biographer himself found a good structure for Mel's story and usually writes well. The text is full of attributions, but doesn't come off as a dry academic exercise. The one disappointing spot I found was the very sparse treatment given to developing Blazing Saddles. This is especially puzzling given the importance of this work in bringing Mel into the national spotlight. No matter, I recommend this to anyone that wants to learn more about this great talent.

[Dollie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been a Mel Brooks fan for a long time because I’m someone who loves to laugh. I’m not crazy about all his movies, but there are a few that never fail to make me laugh, no matter how many times I’ve seen them. So, after recently watching High Anxiety, I wanting to know more about him. It’s Good To Be The King was very good and reminded me of how brilliant he is. He was the master at surrounding himself with extremely talented writers and actors, such as Cloris Leachman, Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn and Harvey Korman. He was a very loving husband and father to Anne Bancroft and his children (Max, the author of World War Z and Devolution, and three children from a previous marriage). He was always a show-off and had to be the center of attention. The only part that surprised me was when Anne Bancroft died, he told people not to tell him they were sorry. He didn’t want to hear it and told people to keep it to themselves. Perhaps he just didn’t want to be reminded she was gone. This was a good, quick read and I enjoyed it.

[Sean Curry]

Reading it now. Pretty interesting. I always like reading the backgrounds of famous comedy legends. So far I've read Steve Martin's autobiography, Standing Up, and Second City Unscripted, kind of an oral history of Second City in Chicago, told by dozens of people who have been involved with it over the years. And just a couple nights ago I watched Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, which was good. I love talking about and listen to other people talk seriously about comedy. It's fascinating.

But anyway, this book is pretty good and informative so far, though it's a bit... juvenile in tone. The author is a good writer, but he comes off almost a bit too excited to be talking about Mel Brooks. But Mel Brooks is quite a funny and interesting guy, so you easily match that enthusiasm, most of the time.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Filled with interesting anecdotes and quotes from Mel Brooks, this book has its definite charms. However, the writing, itself, leaves much to be desired. Parish is clunky, at best, and is one of those authors who insists on using synonyms - sometimes awkward ones - of words he has just used earlier in a paragraph, to avoid repetition. While this is often good practice, in the hands on an unskilled writer it just feels amateurish. I also wish he had used footnotes or endnotes for all of his material.

So, while it's good fun, its not great scholarship.

[Rick Segers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not the best written book in the world but absent an autobiography from the man himself, a good substitute. If you are a fan of Brooks' work then this is a must read. I got this as a gift from my daughter who can pick them for the old man. Last year an autobiography of June Foray and this one this year.

[Marylu Sanok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mel Brooks is insanely funny and thankfully for us, it is catching. His stories show the progression from the hills of the Catskills to Broadway.

He has worked with the funniest people on both sides of the camera. His own productions have a troupe of performers that work with him on many of his works.

This is a laugh out loud book and I recommend it

[Mark Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am reading this as it's the only book about Mel Brooks that includes his entire movie career. I'm not completely satisfied with this author's writing style, but until Brooks writes an autobiography, this is the best one can do.

[Brett Bydairk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Well-written biography of the man who gave us some of the funniest movies ever. From his beginnings in the Jewish section of NYC through the TV studios with Sid Caesar to Hollywood and commercial fame and success, the account details his self-doubts, failures, and ultimate success.

[JAMES AKER · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a well written biography. Unfortunately it is the only one available. It reads like a compendium of and then I wrote this or produced that with very little background and only a small amount of input from people who know Mel. It is better then nothing, but not by much.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seemed like a pretty thorough chronicle of Mel's life. However, the author seems to have no respect for chronology, as the reader finds himself frequently whipsawed between the 60s to the 80s to the 70s and then back again.

[Valarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned that Mel Brooks is complex--he's a little ball of lovable and insufferable. I've also learned that critics are absolute idiots.

[Donna Jo Atwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather straight-forward accounting of Mel Brooks' life. The last third of the book is about his movies. Curiously devoid of any spark of life.

Read for 2009 Spring Challenge 5.8

[Apostate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good, interesting bio of a man with a long & storied career. Brooks has been knocked down several times, but always manages to get back up on top. One of my all-time favorite comedians.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poorly written - reads like an eighth grade biography essay.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sure more in depth bios will appear, but for now, this is the place to start for an overview of the life and accomplishment of this amazingly funny guy.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and comical look into the life of Mel Brooks.

[Samara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable--as delightful as Mel Brooks himself.

[Jason Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couldn't believe that Mel inspire one playwright to base a character on him,
that was later turned into a hit TV series!
An interesting journey through the life of comedy legend Mel Brooks.