The “genius” actor who single-handedly saved Mel Brooks’ career: “Before that, you couldn’t get arrested”
Based on everything he’s achieved and the volume of awards he’s won while doing it, it’s almost impossible to imagine how the landscape of modern comedy would look without Mel Brooks.
He’s one of Hollywood’s foremost living legends, and he’s inspired every single generation that followed in his wake in one way or another, with everyone and everything from Judd Apatow’s ‘Frat Pack’ to Sacha Baron Cohen’s signature style of incognito anarchy owing at least a small debt to Brooks.
There’s also his status as an Academy Award, four-time Primetime Emmy, three-time Grammy, and three-time Tony-winning writer, director, actor, comic, producer, and playwright to consider, which aren’t the accolades of a man who almost saw his mainstream prospects go up in smoke before they’d started.
Brooks was already in his 40s and had years of television experience to his name before he even set foot in the world of feature filmmaking, but The Producers was a tough sell. So tough, in fact, that despite being allowed to finish the picture, Embassy Pictures threatened to withhold the satirical caper from release.
Its creator’s case wasn’t helped by a disastrous first test screening, which only emboldened the studio to mothball the entire thing. The first-time director was in need of a miracle, and he got one from the most unlikely of sources: an actor who’d agreed to play a key role in The Producers before vanishing off the face of the planet.
After a meeting with Brooks, Peter Sellers had agreed to play Leo Bloom in The Producers once he’d finished the script, which was still called Springtime for Hitler. However, the filmmaker never heard from him again, which opened the door for Gene Wilder to step in and make the part his own.
He may have ghosted the production, but he still came through. “The critics said it was tasteless,” Brooks informed Tablet. “Peter Sellers, the genius English actor, loved it, and out of his own pocket, paid for ads in the Hollywood trade papers saying it was the funniest movie he’d ever seen. And the film was saved. Before that, you couldn’t get arrested.”
Not only did Sellers pay for full-page ads, saying, “Last night I saw the ultimate film… The Producers… it is the essence of all great comedy, combined in a single motion picture!” but he had a word with executive producer Joseph E Levine, who he’d recently worked with on Woman Times Seven, and insisted that Brooks’ debut would be much better served by a wide theatrical release than being buried.
It may not have been unanimously beloved at the time, but it nonetheless won Brooks an Oscar for ‘Best Original Screenplay’, set the stage for the successes that followed, and eventually became known as an all-time comedy classic. Would that have happened without Sellers’ backing? Who knows, but if Brooks doesn’t think so, then it’s hard to argue.
