On this day in 1968,Actor and director Mel Brooks wins the Oscar for Best Screenplay with his first feature film, The Producers, which opens this day in 1968. The Producers, starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel as schemers planning to produce a Broadway flop and abscond with their backers’ cash, featured the hilarious spoof “Springtime for Hitler.”
Brooks, born Melvin Kaminsky in 1926 in Brooklyn, began doing impressions as a child and learned drums and piano. He served in World War II as a combat engineer, then became an entertainer and social director at a Catskills resort in the mid-1940s.
In 1949, he was hired to work as a writer and performer on Sid Caesar’s various TV variety shows. In 1960, Brooks’ comedy recording “The 2000-Year-Old Man,” with Carl Reiner, increased his popularity. Eventually, the record became one of the best-selling comedy recordings of all time. In 1965, he launched the TV spy send-up Get Smart.
After the success of The Producers, Brooks went on to win Oscar nominations for his script for Young Frankenstein (1974) and for the lyrics of the theme song of Blazing Saddles (1974). His other hit movies included History of the World, Part I (1981) and To Be or Not to Be, starring his wife, Anne Bancroft.
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