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Moments with Mel

Jenni Frazer picks the very best bits from legendary comedian Mel Brooks’s new memoir

December 2, 2021 17:55
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6 min read

1. At 95, Melvin Kaminsky has the soul of a nine-year-old boy. His descriptions of his early Brooklyn Depression-era childhood — brought up by his widowed mother and his three older brothers, Irving, Lenny and Bernie — record every single street game ever played and every delicious egg cream (neither egg nor cream, it’s a chocolate drink) he ever slurped at Feingold’s candy store counter.

2. His mum, Katie Kaminsky, once went out with comedian Eddie Cantor. Her single name, Brookman, was the origin of Mel Brooks’s professional name; he began to play drums and was going to put “Mel Brookman” on the front of his kit, but ran out of space.

3. His paternal grandfather, Abraham Kaminsky, was in the herring business in Gdansk and continued in that trade in America. Brooks says his Uncle Lee was one of his comedy inspirations; one of ten siblings, Lee Kaminsky used to entertain all the younger cousins at the family sedarim.

4. The family were not very observant, he says, and were “too poor to afford tickets for High Holiday services, so we hardly ever attended temple”. But he did have a barmitzvah — and he told the JC that his daughter, Stefanie, had become religious.