The only actor who grew to hate Mel Brooks: “He could be cruel”
While there might be an element of truth in suggesting that actors and entertainers become increasingly beloved with age by default, as it applies to Hollywood veterans who are at least 90, it should go without saying that Mel Brooks and Dick Van Dyke exist at the polar opposite end of the spectrum from Woody Allen and Roman Polanski.
Getting old doesn’t immediately turn a pariah into a saint, but since Brooks has been working since the 1950s and has made very few enemies along the way, he’s earned his status. That, and the fact he’s responsible for several of the greatest comedy movies ever made, which always helps.
Of course, you don’t become an EGOT-winning legend and an accomplished actor, writer, director, producer, and the overlord of an ever-expanding musical theatre empire without climbing over some people on the way to the top, meaning that Brooks hasn’t always been the nicest guy in the business.
He embarrassed Bill Pullman in front of the entire Spaceballs cast and crew by giving him a chance to prove he was funny and then deciding he’d failed miserably, he was at odds with his Get Smart co-creator, Buck Henry, for decades, and he had his fair share of heated arguments with Gene Wilder.
However, none of them held a lasting grudge, but Burt Reynolds did. Why? Because he was an A-list actor with a huge ego, and when he was belittled or mocked by a comedian who built their entire career on belittling and mocking people, he didn’t like that it was being aimed toward him.
Reynolds made a cameo appearance in 1976’s High Anxiety, which he called “one of the funniest days of his life.” At the time, he “liked Mel and thought he was very clever,” but things quickly soured. “He could be cruel,” the star wrote in his memoir. “He has a nasty sense of humour that’s hysterical if you’re not the brunt of it.”
The Deliverance frontman thought Brooks “considered himself a tough guy,” which he didn’t buy. Reynolds did consider himself to be a tough guy, though, which could be why it annoyed him so much. One night, he had dinner with the filmmaker and his wife, Anne Bancroft, and it was suggested that the two of them star in a picture together.
“‘That’s a great idea’, I said,” Reynolds remembered. “‘Yeah’, he said, ‘You’ll bring them into the theatre, and she’ll keep them there’. That cut me to the quick, and I didn’t talk to Mel for a long time afterward. We got to be friends again, but it was never the same.”
Ironically, Brooks was being prophetic. The moustachioed A-lister was very touchy at having his star power questioned, especially when surrounded by his peers, but the year after he’d been named as Hollywood’s biggest draw for the fifth consecutive year in 1982, he made Stroker Ace, and acknowledged it as the exact moment he knew his days as one of the biggest names in the business were over.
