Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish comedian Mel Brooks.
Mel Brooks
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The Schmooze A Picture Out of Focus
Is Broadway ready for dancing girls in the Warsaw ghetto? Can an American musical high kick through the darkest moments of Jewish history and still avoid giving offense, or worse, falling into kitsch? “The People in the Picture,” a new musical playing at the Roundabout theater until June 19, raises this question, treading where even…
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Books The Ones That Missed the Cut
Earlier this week, Saul Austerlitz wrote about his recent author tour and five not-as-terrible-as-you-think movies. His blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog series. For more information on the series, please visit: One of the trickiest aspects of writing…
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The Schmooze The Man Who Brought Big Ideas to the Small Screen
The reputations of talk show hosts do not have a particularly long shelf life. How many people under the age of 40 recall Jack Paar? Who under 25 knows Johnny Carson? But Stephen Battaglio’s new biography, “David Susskind: A Televised Life,” makes the case for remembering an impresario who brought a brash exuberance to the…
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The Schmooze Lewis J. Stadlen: Rekindling a Talented Jewish Character Actor
On October 2, BearManor Media issued a Kindle Edition of 2009’s “Acting Foolish,” an unjustly overlooked memoir by actor Lewis J. Stadlen. Born in Brooklyn in 1947, Stadlen famously appeared on TV’s “The Sopranos” as Dr. Ira Fried, a wittily dour specialist in erectile dysfunction. Yet Stadlen is basically a stage animal, as student of…
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Books Making a Mess of Comedy
Comedy, explained Aristotle, has a vague history, because at first no one took it seriously. We cannot know for certain if Aristotle was deadpanning, but his observation would amuse Saul Austerlitz. According to Austerlitz, American film comedy has not been taken seriously, either. In fact, the author quips, it is American film’s “bastard stepchild.” With…
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The Schmooze Mel Brooks Moves to Walk of Fame
Over 30 years after opening our ears to the musical quality of franks-and-beans flatulence, actor and director Mel Brooks will finally receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The 83-year-old “Blazing Saddles” director, will place his hands in cement on April 23. Brooks, who was born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn, won an Oscar…
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Life The 2000 Year Old Man and the People of the Book
The November 23 release by Shout! Factory of “The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History,” a 3-CD and 1-DVD set, exuberantly celebrates Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner’s classic comic shtik. Alongside all the beloved old albums, starting in 1961, and even an animated film, is an interview filmed in August 2009. In the latter,…
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Film & TV Brooks and Black on Blondes and Bar Mitzvahs
The New York Post’s Page Six features these two celebrity quotes today: “”YES, I have always loved a good blonde, and who wouldn’t?” — Mel Brooks “PART of the bar mitzvah is that you become a man supposedly at 13 years old. And as I was a man, I decided never to go to a…
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