Free It's Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks by James Robert Parish Page B

play—Alan Dinehart’s
Separate
Rooms, something like that—he didn’t care what it was about. If it had two sets, he wouldn’t make money. If it had more than five characters, he wouldn’t make money. He always wanted a hit, and he never had one. Never.
    “He wore a charcoal-gray thick alpaca coat in the summer and the winter and a Broadway producer’s hat all the time—a homburg—and he screwed a lot of little old ladies out of a lot of cash. I loved him. He’d say, ‘Melvin, I’m going to be busy for an hour.’ That meant he was going to screw a little old lady out of some cash. They’d give him checks made out to Cash and say, ‘What’s the name of the play?’ He’d say, ‘
Cash
.’ They’d say, ‘That’s a funny name for a play,’ and he’d say, ‘So is
The Iceman Cometh!’ ”
    If this sleazy show business figure sounds familiar, it should. The colorful theatrical figure became the basis for Max Bialystock, the grotesque character around whom Mel Brooks shaped his breakthrough 1968 film,
The Producers.
    •     •     •
    In the late spring of 1947, through his multitudinous chores with his fourth-rate producer boss, Mel learned of an upcoming summer job opening. It was with a new theater group in Red Bank, on the north shore of New Jersey. Brooks decided to drop everything for the chance to be on stage—or at least to work backstage—with this low-budget troupe, which was based in the auditorium of the local high school. The biggest attraction of this flimsy enterprise was that it was an Equity company. This meant Mel would be mingling with real theater professionals. As it turned out, the venture was operating on a truly meager budget. If the cast/crew—which included comedian/impressionist Will Jordan—each took home more than $6 a week after kicking back most of their modest official salary to the crafty producer, they were lucky indeed.
    By now, at the ripe age of 21, World War II veteran Brooks had become increasingly cynical about life. Part of his temperament was overshadowed by a sense of inferiority. Emotionally, Mel was still frozen in adolescence, and seemed unable—or unwilling—to break out of that mode and move on to “normal” maturity. At times, he thought himself a real loser. On the other hand, on those occasions when his ego and confidence were riding high, he felt superior to everyone about him.
    One day, the preening director of the Red Bank theater, Percy Montague, chastised Mel repeatedly in front of the company for having dared to commit some minor infraction. Brooks bristled with anger at the injustice of it all—and especially resented the public humiliation. He promptly shifted into an arrogant mode. The previously quiet underling caught the fatuous director off guard when he announced with great bombast, “I will not be the scapegoat!” To emphasize his firm position on the matter, Mel burst into a tirade filled with enough big words and erudite references to convince everyone in earshot that he was not a man to be taken lightly. For this show business neophyte, being taken seriously—even if his frequent bizarre behavior precluded receiving any high degree of respect from associates—was of paramount importance.
    By midsummer, management had had enough of the pretentious Percy Montague, and he was given his marching papers. Shortly thereafter, the man in charge of the company announced he was quitting the failing operation. He offered the troupe the option of following suit or, if they so wished, finishing out the season themselves. Mel and his two roommates rose to the occasion. John Roney added production responsibilities to his acting duties, while performer Will Jordan took on some of the managerial tasks. With the post of company director still vacant, Brooks—always at his best when stretched the thinnest—volunteered for that daunting assignment.
    To everyones surprise—including his own—Mel blossomed in his position of authority.