A woman once accosted filmmaker Mel Brooks and angrily told him that his 1968 comedy The Producers was "vulgar." "Madame," he said with an air of pride, "it rises below vulgarity." Mel Brooks spent a career as a comedy writer, director, and actor offending vast segments of his audience, while simultaneously making them laugh uproariously. His series of genre spoofs meticulously recreated the feel and look of westerns, horror films, and sci-fi classics, only to upend cliches with an assortment of double-entendres, anachronisms, musical production numbers, Jewish American references, and jokes about bodily functions. The creators of such 1990s phenomena as South Park and There's Something About Mary are direct descendants of Brooks' comic sensibility.

Mel Brooks

Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. A boyhood friend was drumming legend Buddy Rich, who taught Brooks how to play. Brooks performed at...