At Mel Brooks’s prodding, I am going to spill the beans about his new memoir, All About Me!.

As he encourages in the preface: “This book needs to sell!… Let the secrets out! Tell all! Tell everybody! Let everybody you know hear all the terrible things I’ve done…shout it from the rooftops!”

Brooks has not done anything all that terrible—unless you count Solarbabies, the postapocalyptic roller-skating movie that his company, Brooksfilms, produced. He also doesn’t take the book as an opportunity to settle old scores; the closest thing All About Me! has to villains are the Columbia Pictures execs who passed on Young Frankenstein because Brooks insisted on filming it in black and white. If you’re looking for scandal, you’d do better to check out Woody Allen’s memoir, Apropos of Nothing.

Instead, All About Me! takes its cue from a message Brooks posted on the wall for his Blazing Saddles writing team: “First, we laugh.” The 95-year-old Oscar winner has devoted his life to what he calls his “noble quest” to get to “the ultimate punch line,” from his time writing for Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows to creating “The 2000 Year Old Man” with his dear friend Carl Reiner. He cocreated the Emmy-winning TV series Get Smart with Buck Henry; he wrote and directed classic comedies like The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. In 2001, he became the king of Broadway with his musical adaptation of The Producers, which won a still-unmatched 12 Tony awards.

Reading All About Me! is the next best thing to watching Mel Brooks projects as he sits on the couch next to you, providing color commentary. But the book isn’t just all about him. Brooks writes hilariously and poignantly about his nearly 41-year marriage to Anne Bancroft, and he also celebrates his many collaborators on and off screen, from Alfa-Betty Olsen to Gene Wilder.

On the publication of the memoir he once swore (to me, I might add) he would never write, Brooks shared with Vanity Fair what he considers the best years of his life, the difference between Jewish and New York humor, competing with Woody Allen, whether there should be a separate Oscar for comedies, and his life code.

Vanity Fair: I spoke with you 25 years ago, when The Twelve Chairs was released for the first time on home video. I begged you to write your memoir, but you said you never would. Why did you wait so long to listen to me?

Mel Brooks: Obviously, it was a very good suggestion, because it came to pass. But during the pandemic, my son Max said, ‘You’re stuck in the house. Just write the stories you told me when I was growing up, you’ll have a big fat book.’

Before writing yours, did you read other celebrity memoirs? Did you read Woody’s?

Yes, I did. It was good; it was interesting. He has wonderful recall about his childhood. Seven or eight years old, he had opinions.

You write that the first Broadway musical you saw was Anything Goes. That seems like a good description of your kind of comedy.

That is a very good catch-all phrase for the kind of crazy stuff I’ve been writing all my life. [As a writer,] nobody ever said, “You crossed the line,” because I didn’t know where the lines were.

We are the jesters; that’s our job. We aren’t the kings. It is our duty to whisper in the king’s ear what is going on. The king doesn’t want to hear bad things, so we make it funny. But we tell the truth. Comedy in the last 10 to 20 years has gotten a little too politically correct. We’re watching our step, and we shouldn’t. We should just blast everything we think should be brought to the king’s attention.

People always say, “They would never make Blazing Saddles today.”

[Laughs] Unfortunately that’s true. I was very lucky to have Richard Pryor by my side, with Andy Bergman, Norman Steinberg, and Alan Uger. When we sat down to write it, I said, “We should write dangerously, that’s what this is all about.”

I enjoyed reading about your apprenticeship in the Catskills. Was that your comedy college? What lessons did you learn there?

The lessons we all learned being stand-up comics in the Borsht Belt was that no matter what you said, no matter what you did, no matter how terrible or crazy, if it got a laugh, it was good. Even though it might have been in excretable taste. If there was laughter in the house, you fulfilled your purpose, which was to make that audience laugh. And the Jews were tough. You did not get a laugh very easily. I decided I wouldn’t do jokes. I wouldn’t just say, “I had a girl in Chicago who was so skinny, the headwaiter said, ‘Check your umbrella!’” I knew I had to go past those jokes.

When did you first realize that the people who made you laugh were mostly Jewish?

It was an accident of geography. You’re born in a certain place, in a nest, and the nest was Williamsburg, which is a section of Brooklyn. I don’t think there was anybody but Jews for three miles. Even the cats in the backyard, they yowled, which was very Jewish. But everybody thinks my humor is Jewish humor, and it’s not true. It’s New York humor. It’s a pounding, restless, driving beat. The intensity of New York, that’s my comedy.

I also loved reading about your comedy heroes. You were nine years old when A Night at the Opera came out. What was it like to see a new Marx Brothers movie in a movie theater on a big screen? What impact did that have on you?

That was like somebody yelling, “Land ho” after being at sea. When I saw A Night at the Opera, I thought, “That’s it, that’s my country.” Freedom, fun, madness.

In the 1970s, you were putting out your earliest, funniest movies. That was the closest I could get to growing up in the 1930s, when the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Mae West, Wheeler and Woolsey…

Wheeler and Woolsey, good for you.

…they were all putting out movies. That must have been thrilling. Or did you want to be the swashbuckling hero, like Errol Flynn?

I liked those adventures, like Captain Blood—but what thrilled me was the ‘30s comedies. Big silver screen in a movie house, eating a salmon sandwich, because you went in on Saturday morning at 10 and didn’t come out until 5:00. You saw things over and over. My older brothers had to come and grab me by my hair to drag me home. Life was wonderful as long as I could go to the movies and see that kind of unfettered, insane, free-for-all comedy.

You write lovingly about the Ritz Brothers. Their movies were rarely shown on television or played in revival houses, so I basically learned about them from you when you talked about them in interviews. Were you aware Harry and Jimmy Ritz’s last screen appearance was in something called Blazing Stewardesses?

I didn’t know that. [laughs] Harry Ritz was so thrilling. The way he walked, the inflections when he talked, the wacko expressions. Jerry Lewis got a lot of stuff from Harry Ritz. And yet the Ritz Brothers could dance together so perfectly, smooth as silk. They had class, charm and a large measure of insanity.

Your book answered a question I had always wondered: You were a performer as well as a writer. Why weren’t you in any Your Show of Show sketches? You would have been great in the This is Your Story sketch.

I could have been one of the relatives. But I thought anything we wrote was more than adequately covered with the great Sid Caesar at the helm, the best comedian that ever lived, and Imogene Coca, such a natural foil and so fabulous; the great Carl Reiner, not only one of the best comic performers, but also my dearest friend; and Howie Morris, who I loved, too.

What I find astonishing about Your Show of Shows is not only did you do more than 30 90-minute live shows each season, but you didn’t use cue cards.

The sketches were like little playlets, with a beginning, middle and an end. So if they forgot a line, they knew the direction they were heading. Some of the ad libs were funnier than some of the stuff we wrote. We went off on a tangent in a bullfighter sketch where Sid played a bullfighter gored by a bull, and he was dying. Everyone came and held his hand and told him what a great matador he was. And he said, “I’m so thirsty, could someone get me a ginger ale?” And Carl said, “While you’re out there, get me an egg salad sandwich.” It turned into everyone ordering food over this stricken matador. I loved that sketch.

“The 2,000 Year Old Man” is your signature comic character. It was something you and Carl performed at parties. Could you anticipate it would become this iconic comedy routine?

Carl and I really loved doing it—me not knowing what his question would be and he not knowing what my answer would be. Once we did it on The Ed Sullivan Show. I told Carl, “Television is the end of this character. We just have to do this at parties for friends.” Then we got very lucky making the records. I remember one session, he said, “You lived 2,000 years. You’ve had many girlfriends. Can you remember your favorite?” And I said, “Shirley.” He always tried to trap me, and he said, “What was so good about Shirley?” And I said, “Her friend, Lila.” And that caught him completely off-guard. He hit the floor.

Are you at your best when you’re trapped?

I think so. Carl said there is nothing more beautiful than a comic in trouble.

You write about your noble quest for the ultimate punch line. Was there ever something you came up with that went too far even for you?

I did. It was the one time in my life that I said, “No, this is a bit much.” It was in Blazing Saddles. It’s when Madeline Kahn as Lily Von Shtupp invites Cleavon Little as Bart, the black sheriff, back to her dressing room after the show. She ad-libbed, “Make yourself comfortable, loosen your bullets.” That was Madeline. She asks if it’s true what they say that black people are gifted? And then you hear a slobbering sound and she says, “It’s true, it’s true.” His punch line was, “I hate to disillusion you, but you’re sucking on my arm.” And I said, “Okay, too far.” I cut it.

Did you feel competitive with Woody, or were you cheering each other on?

Both, absolutely both. There was real competition. I wanted my movies to be bigger than his. There was no question—my movies always did better at the box office than his, but that didn’t mean that they were in any way richer or better or funnier. But anyway, when Midnight in Paris came out, I wrote him a long letter telling him how much I loved the movie. He would often write to me. He liked Life Stinks. Nobody else liked it; Woody liked it.

You’re an EGOT, but there’s something you don’t mention in your book: You have three films in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. That’s the same number as Robert Altman, Stanley Donen, and John Cassavettes.

I didn’t know that ‘til you just told me.

The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein have all been certified as “historically, culturally or aesthetically significant.”

Wow, who knew the government had such good taste? That’s terrific. I’m thrilled to hear that. I’ve got to call all my friends.

You’ve won an Oscar, but the Academy has a poor history of giving comedy the respect it deserves. You never hear a comedy described as Oscar bait. Cloris Leachman wasn’t even nominated for Young Frankenstein. Do you think there should be a separate Oscar for comedies?

I don’t think so, no. It’s all a big barrel called entertainment. But someone should let [the Academy] know that comedy counts, and that behind many comedies there is an engine that is saying more profound things than perhaps the most [dramatic] movies. Racial prejudice is serious stuff, and it literally drives Blazing Saddles forward.

When you’re out and about in public, what is the Mel Brooks reference most shouted at you?

It’s always, “It’s good to be the king” [from History of the World, Part 1]. Once in a while some wise guy will say, “Fuck the poor” [from the same film].

You’re not 2000 years old, and I’m no Carl Reiner, but I would like to ask Mel Brooks, the 95-year-old man, for his life code.

I would say, comb your hair every day so you look nice. Keep smiling. [He takes an exquisitely-timed beat.] And cut out desserts.

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