Mel Brooks turned 100 on June 28, and though he celebrated it with family at home in Beverly Hills, Hollywood celebrated him across social media.
Henry Winkler called Brooks, “My hero.” Amy Yasbeck, who appeared in “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” said, “I think you’ve got 100 more in you.”
At home, Brooks’ son Max said his father was “in perfect health with a razor sharp mind, celebrating with friends and family. 100 years! Happy Birthday, Dad!” The photo showed Brooks at the center of a family photo with a birthday cake featuring the Brooklyn Bridge and three lit candles: 1-0-0.
Actor Richard Kind said, “I don’t think he wants to share his birthday with the world, I think he likes to share his talent with the world.” Brooks has been doing that for more than eight decades. He is an EGOT winner — Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony — a club he joined in 2001 after winning a Tony for “The Producers.”
Director Larry Karaszewski said Brooks has been his hero since he snuck into “Blazing Saddles” at “an inappropriately young age.”
“Happy 100th birthday to Mel Brooks — the funniest, kindest, smartest man in the history of the world,” Karaszewski said. “One of the great joys of my life has been becoming Mel’s friend.” Karaszewski also said, “We are all so lucky to have lived in the Mel Brooks century. Here’s to his next one thousand nine hundred years!”
The American Film Institute (AFI) also gave Brooks a birthday present more than a quarter-century in the making. On June 28, AFI moved “Blazing Saddles” from No. 6 to No. 1 on its “100 Years…100 Laughs” list, displacing “Some Like It Hot,” which had held the top spot since the list debuted in 2000. “Some Like It Hot” starred Marilyn Monroe, who was also born in June 1926.
AFI said the move was an “honorary reorganization” in honor of Brooks’ 100th birthday. Three Brooks films are in the list’s top 15: “Blazing Saddles,” “The Producers” at No. 11 and “Young Frankenstein” at No. 13.
Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn on June 28, 1926. Andy Griffith was born four weeks earlier and Calvin Coolidge was the U.S. President.
The centennial came after a Brooks-heavy first half of 2026. HBO’s two-part documentary “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!” debuted in January. The film, directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio, follows Brooks from Brooklyn, World War II and the Borscht Belt to Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, “The Producers,” “Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein,” “Spaceballs,” Broadway, Anne Bancroft and his family.
Apatow wrote on social media, “Happy Birthday King!!! We love you! Thank you for making Earth a happier place.”
In April at CinemaCon, Amazon MGM Studios announced that “Spaceballs: The New One” is set to be released April 23, 2027. The long-awaited sequel brings back Brooks, Rick Moranis (his first film in 30 years), Daphne Zuniga, George Wyner and Bill Pullman from the 1987 “Spaceballs,” and adds Josh Gad, Keke Palmer, Lewis Pullman and Anthony Carrigan. Josh Greenbaum is directing, with a screenplay by Gad, Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit.
And in May, the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York said it would become the home of Brooks’ career archives. The collection includes about 150,000 creative and production documents and more than 5,000 photographs, including material from his Army years.
The Journal saw Brooks’ timing up close in 2023, when Brooks appeared at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival opening night at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills for the world premiere of “Remembering Gene Wilder.” The night was about Wilder, Brooks’ friend and collaborator for more than 50 years. But when Brooks walked onstage in a red tie, white shirt and dark suit, the sold-out theater rose for Brooks too.
“It’s such a pleasure to be here,” Brooks told the crowd that night. “And at my age, it’s a pleasure to be anywhere.”
That line worked when Brooks was 96. It still works at 100.
In 2021, Brooks released his memoir, “All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business.” In the audiobook, read by Brooks, he took the listener from Brooklyn street corners to the Borscht Belt, from World War II to Sid Caesar’s writers’ room, from “The 2,000 Year Old Man” with Reiner to the films that made Brooks into Brooks.
Brooks has spent his career making large targets look small: Nazis, tyrants, bigots, Hollywood annoyances, studio logic, bad taste, good taste and, now, age.
“The best thing in the world was saying something funny and hearing an audience explode with laughter,” Brooks wrote in his memoir.
A century in, Brooks is still chasing that sound.
