Mel Brooks names the single greatest performance of his career: “The best work I have ever done”
It feels inaccurate to call Mel Brooks overlooked or underrated in any respect when he’s a certified legend of stage and screen who became only the eighth person in history to complete an EGOT when he claimed a Tony in 2001 to complement his Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar.
He’s also one of Hollywood’s most legendary comedic minds who’s been responsible for a slew of classics, so it seems fair to say he’s gotten his flowers. However, one thing that can be debated is whether or not the veteran has ever received due credit for his on-camera performances.
As a writer, director, and producer, his track record through the likes of The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs, and Young Frankenstein speaks for itself. Brooks regularly played a role in his onscreen endeavours, but he wasn’t typically singled out as the de facto highlight or scene stealer.
In fact, Brooks only has two career nominations for his acting exploits, and they came in consecutive years: in 1977 and 1978, he was shortlisted for a Golden Globe in the ‘Best Actor – Musical or Comedy’ category for Silent Movie and High Anxiety. That’s the total sum of his performative recognition on the big screen, and neither of those films features what he called his finest hour.
Instead, in his memoir, All About Me, he plumped for a widely panned and largely forgotten caper that also tanked horribly at the box office after failing to recoup even a third of its production costs. 1991’s Life Stinks would never trouble the Oscars, but Brooks holds his work in the highest esteem.
“I believe Life Stinks was also the best work I have ever done as an actor,” he declared. “One of my personal favourite moments of all my movies is in this one: I’m on the roof of an old warehouse in the slums. I’ve done 30 days of living in garbage and filth. I’ve been a billionaire for the last 20 years, and now here I am, penniless.”
“I go up to the roof and I say, ‘God, 30 days. A month,'” he recalled. “And I began to cry. I’m just so happy and relieved that I did it. And I say, ‘Thank you. Thank you, God’. And then I take a pause and I say, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you when I was rich’. And then I just leave. It’s my favourite line because it’s both funny and touching.”
Critics and audiences clearly didn’t view Life Stinks in the same way, but as long as Brooks was happy. The relatively straightforward premise finds the actor and filmmaker’s businessman making a bet that sees him spending a month living on the streets of Los Angeles, where he learns all of the expected life lessons about haves, have-nots, the meaning of life, and the futility of extravagant wealth.
It’s nowhere near Brooks’ best, and it might not even make most people’s top ten, but he doesn’t think he’s ever been better as an actor.
