Biography

Has frequently cast himself, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Rudy De Luca, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Dom DeLuise, Ron Carey, Marty Feldman and Kenneth Mars.

Almost always uses music by John Morris

Frequently uses the line: "We have much to do and less time to do it in."

His films usually contain many Jewish references and jokes

Always features one scene in his movies in which the main character is seated and staring blankly, wondering what went wrong, while friends console him.

Best friends with Carl Reiner. Both of them widowers, they hang out and watch movies together every night.

Called his late wife, Anne Bancroft, his Obi-Wan Kenobi as she had encouraged him to turn his movie The Producers (1967) into a Broadway musical.

Brooks has stated that he includes so many jokes about Hitler and the Nazis in his movies because he wants to make them both seem so ridiculous that their beliefs never became popular again. However, he added that he absolutely refuses to include any jokes about the Holocaust or other atrocities.

Brooks introduced himself to Anne Bancroft in 1961 while she was making her first appearance on The Perry Como Show (1948) (she would later return to appear on that show on various occasions over several years). Brooks bribed a woman who worked on the show to tell him at which restaurant Bancroft was going to dine so he could "accidentally" bump into her again and strike up a conversation. It worked. The two fell in love and eventually married at New York City's municipal Marriage Bureau in Lower Manhattan, where a passerby served as witness.

Brooks won an Oscar for the screenplay of The Producers (1967); three Emmys in a row (1997-1999) for his guest appearance as Uncle Phil in Mad About You (1992); three Tonys for "The Producers" - Best Musical, Original Music Score and Book (musical); and three Grammys - Best Spoken Comedy Album for "The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000" (1998, with Carl Reiner) and two for "The Producers" (2001): Best Musical Show Album (as composer/lyricist) and Best Long Form Music Video (as artist). Thus he is one of only 18 "EGOT"s, meaning those who have received at least one of all of the four major entertainment awards: an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony, competitively. The other recipients are Richard Rodgers, Helen Hayes, Rita Moreno, John Gielgud, Audrey Hepburn, Marvin Hamlisch, Jonathan Tunick, Mike Nichols, Whoopi Goldberg, Scott Rudin, Robert Lopez, John Legend, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, Alan Menken, Jennifer Hudson and [Viola Davis].

Why should I indulge myself and do a David Lean-ish kind of film? I could do my little Jewish Brief Encounter (1945) and disguise it - shorten the noses. But it wouldn't be as much fun as delivering my dish of insanity.

I cut my finger. That's tragedy. A man walks into an open sewer and dies. That's comedy.

My movies rise below vulgarity.

Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together.

Oh, I'm not a true genius. I'm a near genius. I would say I'm a short genius. I'd rather be tall and normal than a short genius.