Mel Brooks is celebrating his 100th birthday this Sunday, June 28.
The EGOT winner has been entertaining the world for over seven decades, beginning his career as a comic and a writer for Sid Caesar's variety show Your Show of Shows, which ran from 1950 to 1954.
"I think laughing keeps you healthy and happy," the legendary comedian told People earlier this year, remarking how he and fellow comedians and friends Carl Reiner and Caesar both lived into their 90s before their deaths in 2020 and 2014, respectively. "We all laughed a lot."
Keep scrolling for photos of Brooks throughout the years, and what he has said about his long and fruitful life.
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© Getty ImagesBrooks is seen in the back of a sketch featuring Caesar, in the middle
Early days
Brooks was born Melvin James Kaminsky on a tenement kitchen table on June 28, 1926 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and grew up in Williamsburg, on South 3rd Street. His father Max Kaminsky died of tuberculosis at 34, when Brooks was two years old. After spending some time in the army during World War II, upon his return, he moved to the Catskills and worked as hotel entertainment.
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© Getty ImagesReiner and Caesar in 1961
The 2000-Year-Old Man
Brooks broke out with the 2000 Year Old Man sketch, in which his best friend Reiner interviewed him as a 2,000-year-old-man on Your Show of Shows.
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© NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesStruggling financially, Brooks, pictured on the first episode of The Late Show with Johnny Carson, moved to Los Angeles to find work
His first marriage
Brooks was married to Florence Baum, a dancer in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, from 1953 until 1962, and they welcomed three children together, Stefanie, born in 1956, Nicky, born in 1957, and Eddie, born in 1959. Brooks saw a sizable decrease in his salary upon the end of Your Show of Shows, and eventually moved to Los Angeles to find work. Florence filed for legal separation in 1961, and they divorced the following year.
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© Getty ImagesThe couple with Brooks' daughter Stefanie in 1967
And then he met Anne Bancroft
Brooks met The Graduate actress Anne Bancroft at a rehearsal for the Perry Como Variety Show in 1961, and they married three years later, welcoming their son Max in 1972.
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© Getty ImagesBrooks and Bancroft in 2004, a year before her passing
A four-decade marriage
Brooks and Bancroft were married for 41 years, together until the latter's death from uterine cancer in 2005, when she was 73 years old.
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© Getty ImagesBrooks with his son and grandson in 2024
Doting grandfather
Brooks is a grandfather to at least two grandchildren, his and Bancroft's son Max's son Henry Michael, as well as his and Florence's son Edward's daughter Samantha.
