151-560: Maximilian Michael Brooks (born May 22, 1972) is an American author. He is the son of comedian Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft . Much of Brooks's writing focuses on zombie stories. He was a senior fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, New York . Brooks was born on May 22, 1972, in Manhattan , New York City . He is the son of actress Anne Bancroft and actor, director, producer, and writer Mel Brooks . His father
302-449: A Random House book launch of Moss Hart ' s autobiography, Act One , at Mamma Leone's , Mel Tolkin (standing in for Carl Reiner) and Mel Brooks performed, and it was later recalled by Kenneth Tynan . Reiner played the straight-man interviewer and set Brooks up as anything from a Tibetan monk to an astronaut. As Reiner explained: "In the evening, we'd go to a party and I'd pick a character for him to play. I never told him what it
453-606: A Robin Hood parody that lasted only 13 episodes. Nearly 20 years later, in response to the 1991 hit film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves , Brooks mounted another Robin Hood parody, Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). It resurrected several pieces of dialogue from his TV series, and from earlier Brooks films. After his two hit films Brooks got a call from Ron Clark who had an audacious idea:
604-456: A bachelor's degree in history. He also attended graduate school, studying film at American University in Washington, D.C. From 2001 to 2003, Brooks was a member of the writing team at Saturday Night Live . In 2003, Brooks wrote his first book, The Zombie Survival Guide , a fictional survival manual about zombies . In 2006, Brooks wrote the follow-up World War Z: An Oral History of
755-547: A fallen angel who discusses pop culture as intellectual subject matter with Affleck's character. The film received generally positive reviews, but proved controversial among religious groups who deemed it blasphemous. In 2000, Damon, Affleck, and producers Chris Moore and Sean Bailey founded the production company LivePlanet to create the Emmy -nominated documentary series Project Greenlight , which aimed to find and fund worthwhile film projects from novice filmmakers. Among
906-481: A musical , which was hugely successful on Broadway and received an unprecedented 12 Tony awards. In 2000, Roger Ebert included The Producers in his canon of Great Movies, and remembered being in an elevator with Brooks and Anne Bancroft shortly after the movie was released: "A woman got on the elevator, recognized him and said, 'I have to tell you, Mr. Brooks, that your movie is vulgar.' Brooks smiled benevolently. 'Lady', he said, 'it rose below vulgarity. ' " With
1057-473: A "spectrum of behavior" analysis of sexual misconduct cases, noting that some are more serious than others. The comment caused offense to prominent members of the Me Too movement and the public for being "tone-deaf in understand[ing] what abuse is like". On January 17, 2018, Damon apologized on The Today Show for his social commentary, stating that he "should get in the back seat and close [his] mouth for
1208-636: A 20-second advertisement for Nespresso , directed by Grant Heslov , with whom he worked on The Monuments Men . The deal earned him $ 3 million. Damon also provided voice-over for United Airlines ' resurrected "Fly the Friendly Skies" advertisement campaign in 2013. In 2014, he starred in George Clooney 's The Monuments Men , and played the minor role of scientist Dr. Mann in Christopher Nolan 's Interstellar . That same year, Damon appeared as
1359-467: A Dirty Rotten Fraud was an autobiographical script based on his marriage. By 1966, Brooks was "living in a fairly old but comfortable New York town house". Brooks married actress Anne Bancroft in 1964, and they remained together for 41 years until her death in 2005. They met at a rehearsal for the Perry Como Variety Show in 1961, and were married three years later on August 5, 1964, at
1510-407: A Nobel Prize–winning psychologist who suffers from " high anxiety ". By 1980, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert had referred to Mel Brooks and Woody Allen as "the two most successful comedy directors in the world today ... America's two funniest filmmakers". Released that year was the dramatic film The Elephant Man directed by David Lynch and produced by Brooks. Knowing that anyone seeing
1661-464: A Water.org partner, including the sale of limited-edition "blue chalice" glasses imprinted with an embellished blue version of the brand's logo. In a television advertisement made for broadcast during the 2018 Super Bowl of the United States' National Football League (NFL), he promoted Water.org and Stella Artois's role in supporting its work. In October 2021, he announced a new partnership with
SECTION 10
#17328697896551812-508: A black hero." When Gene Wilder replaced Gig Young as the Waco Kid, he did so only when Brooks agreed that his next film would be a script that Wilder had been working on: a spoof of the Universal series of Frankenstein films from several decades earlier. After the filming of Blazing Saddles was completed, Wilder and Brooks began writing the script for Young Frankenstein and shot it in
1963-505: A cameo appearance as an alcoholic ex-serf who "yearns for the regular beatings of yesteryear". The film was shot in Yugoslavia with a budget of $ 1.5 million. It received poor reviews and was not financially successful. Brooks then wrote an adaptation of Oliver Goldsmith 's She Stoops to Conquer , but was unable to sell the idea to any studio and believed that his career was over. In 1972, he met agent David Begelman , who helped him set up
2114-613: A career CIA agent, and played an undercover mobster working for the Massachusetts State Police in Martin Scorsese 's The Departed , a remake of the Hong Kong police thriller Infernal Affairs . Assessing his work in the two films, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote that Damon has the unique "ability to recede into a film while also being fully present, a recessed intensity, that distinguishes how he holds
2265-523: A celebrity correspondent for Years of Living Dangerously . In 2015, Damon portrayed the main character, astronaut Mark Watney, in Ridley Scott 's The Martian , based on Andy Weir 's bestselling novel of the same name , a role that earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Having not returned for
2416-493: A character from Dostoevsky's The Idiot . And the name Leo Bloom is a reference to Leopold Bloom, hero of Joyce 's Ulysses . Regarding religion, Brooks stated, "I'm rather secular. I'm basically Jewish. But I think I'm Jewish not because of the Jewish religion at all. I think it's the relationship with the people and the pride I have. The tribe surviving so many misfortunes, and being so brave and contributing so much knowledge to
2567-450: A charismatic performance in a demanding role that's bound to catapult him to stardom. Perfectly cast, he makes the aching, step-by-step transformation of Will realistic and credible." It received nine Academy Awards nominations, including Best Actor for Damon; he and Affleck won the Oscar and Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay . He and Affleck were each paid salaries of $ 600,000, while
2718-668: A comedian at the age of 16, filling in for an ill MC. During his teens, he changed his name to Melvin Brooks, influenced by his mother's maiden name Brookman, after being confused with trumpeter Max Kaminsky . Brooks graduated from Eastern District High School in Williamsburg in January 1944 and intended to follow his older brother and enroll in Brooklyn College to study psychology. In early 1944, in his senior year in high school, Brooks
2869-412: A comic and a writer for Sid Caesar 's variety show Your Show of Shows from 1950 to 1954. With Carl Reiner , he created the comedy sketch The 2000 Year Old Man , and together, they released several comedy albums, starting with 2000 Year Old Man in 1960. With Buck Henry , he created the hit television comedy series Get Smart , which starred Don Adams and ran from 1965 to 1970. Brooks won
3020-446: A crazy, unreal comic-strip kind of thing about something besides a family. No one had ever done a show about an idiot before. I decided to be the first." Starring Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, the series ran from 1965 until 1970, although Brooks had little involvement after the first season. It was highly rated for most of its production and won seven Emmy Awards , including Outstanding Comedy Series in 1968 and 1969. During
3171-444: A dart out of the window in a scene with Kenneth Mars. Composer John Morris again provided the score, and Universal monsters special effects veteran Kenneth Strickfaden worked on the film. Young Frankenstein was the third-highest-grossing film domestically of 1974, just behind Blazing Saddles with a gross of $ 86 million. It also received two Academy Award nominations for Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound . It received some of
SECTION 20
#17328697896553322-523: A deal with Warner Bros. to hire Brooks (as well as Richard Pryor , Andrew Bergman , Norman Steinberg , and Alan Uger ) as a script doctor for an unproduced script called Tex-X . Eventually, Brooks was hired as director for what became Blazing Saddles (1974), his third film. Blazing Saddles starred Cleavon Little , Gene Wilder , Harvey Korman , Slim Pickens , Madeline Kahn , Alex Karras , and Brooks himself, with cameos by Dom DeLuise and Count Basie . It had music by Brooks and John Morris, and
3473-594: A desert. The reviews for the film were generally positive, but it was a box-office failure. He then played amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne in Doug Liman 's action thriller The Bourne Identity (2002). Liman considered several actors for the role before he cast Damon. Damon insisted on performing many of the stunts himself, undergoing three months of extensive training in stunt work, the use of weapons, boxing, and eskrima . Damon said that before The Bourne Identity he
3624-402: A different application." This had come after an incident in which his daughter left the table due to his usage of the word and "wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous." He denied ever using the six-letter word "faggot" in his personal life, and, in regard to the word "fag": "I explained that that word was used constantly and casually and was even a line of dialogue in
3775-598: A far warmer realm in which affection always outweighs irony." The production broke the Tony Award record with 12 wins, a record previously held for 37 years by Hello, Dolly! with 10 wins including the Tony Award for Best Musical . It led to a 2005 big-screen version of the Broadway adaptation/remake with Lane, Broderick, Gary Beach , and Roger Bart reprising their stage roles, and new cast members Uma Thurman and Will Ferrell . In early April 2006, Brooks began composing
3926-565: A fictionalized version of Wilhelm Grimm alongside Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam 's fantasy adventure The Brothers Grimm (2005), which was a critically panned commercial failure; The Washington Post concluded, "Damon, constantly flashing his newscaster's teeth and flaunting a fake, ' Masterpiece Theatre ' dialect, comes across like someone who got lost on the way to an audition for a high school production of The Pirates of Penzance ." Later in 2005, he appeared as an energy analyst in
4077-457: A lead role in the film Geronimo: An American Legend . While at Harvard, as an exercise for an English class, Damon wrote an essay in the form of a film treatment which was later developed into the screenplay Good Will Hunting (for which he received an Academy Award). At Harvard, Damon was a member of the Delphic Club , one of the university's elite Final Clubs . In 2013, he was awarded
4228-493: A little cash to throw him gags....At 24, Brooks got his break as a full-time writer. Brooks found more rewarding work behind the scenes, becoming a comedy writer for television. In 1949, his friend Sid Caesar hired him to write jokes for the DuMont/NBC series The Admiral Broadway Revue , paying him, off-the-books, $ 50 a week. In 1950, Caesar created the innovative variety comedy series Your Show of Shows and hired Brooks as
4379-431: A million copies in 1961. They eventually expanded their routine with two more albums in 1961 and 1962, a revival in 1973, a 1975 animated TV special, and a reunion album in 1998. At one point, when Brooks had financial and career struggles, the record sales from the 2000 Year Old Man were his chief source of income. Brooks adapted the 2000 Year Old Man character to create the 2500-Year-Old Brewmaster for Ballantine Beer in
4530-469: A mind.' The book was Dead Souls by the magnificent genius Nikolai Gogol . It was a revelation. I'd never read anything like it. It was hysterically funny and incredibly moving at the same time... It was a life-changing gift, and I still read it once a year to remind myself of what great comic writing can be." Brooks and co-writer Reiner had become close friends and began to casually improvise comedy routines when they were not working. In October 1959, for
4681-587: A modest budget of $ 2.6 million. A satire on the Western film genre, it references older films such as Destry Rides Again (1939), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), High Noon (1952) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). In a surreal sequence towards the end, it references the extravagant musicals of Busby Berkeley . Despite mixed reviews, Blazing Saddles was a success with younger audiences. It became
Max Brooks - Misplaced Pages Continue
4832-472: A movie of mine as recently as 2003... To my admiration and pride, she was extremely articulate about the extent to which that word would have been painful to someone in the LGBTQ+ community regardless of how culturally normalized it was. I not only agreed with her but thrilled at her passion, values and desire for social justice." Aside from awards he has garnered for his role as an actor and producer, Damon became
4983-495: A nomination for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for his role as the narrator in the series. Brooks is one of the few people who have received an Oscar , an Emmy , a Tony , and a Grammy . He won his first Grammy for Best Spoken Comedy Album in 1999 for his recording of The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000 with Carl Reiner . His two other Grammys came in 2002 for Best Musical Show Album for
5134-423: A parody of science fiction, mainly Star Wars . It starred Bill Pullman , John Candy , Rick Moranis , Daphne Zuniga , Dick Van Patten, Joan Rivers , Dom DeLuise, and Brooks. In 1989, Brooks (with co-executive producer Alan Spencer ) made another attempt at television success with the sitcom The Nutt House , featuring Brooks regulars Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman. It was originally broadcast on NBC, but
5285-451: A poster reading "Mel Brooks presents The Elephant Man " would expect a comedy, he set up the company Brooksfilms . It has since produced a number of non-comedy films, including Frances (1982), The Fly (1986), and 84 Charing Cross Road (1987) starring Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft—as well as comedies, including Richard Benjamin 's My Favorite Year (1982), partially based on Mel Brooks's real life. Brooks sought to purchase
5436-535: A press conference for All American , a reporter asked, "What are you going to do next?" and Brooks replied, "Springtime for Hitler," perhaps riffing on Springtime for Henry . For several years, Brooks toyed with a bizarre and unconventional idea about a musical comedy of Adolf Hitler . He explored the idea as a novel and a play before finally writing a script. He eventually found two producers to fund it, Joseph E. Levine and Sidney Glazier , and made his first feature film, The Producers (1968). The Producers
5587-530: A reputation in New York City. Kenneth Tynan saw the comedy duo perform at a party in 1959 and wrote that Brooks "was the most original comic improvisor I had ever seen". In 1960, Brooks, without his family, moved from New York to Hollywood, returning in 1961. He and Reiner began performing the "2000 Year Old Man" act on The Steve Allen Show . Their performances led to the release of the comedy album 2000 Years with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks that sold over
5738-508: A role for which he lost 11 kilograms (25 lb). Damon said that he wanted to display his character's humanity and honesty on screen despite his criminal actions. An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith 's 1955 novel of same name , the film costarred Jude Law , Gwyneth Paltrow , and Cate Blanchett , and received praise from critics. "Damon outstandingly conveys his character's slide from innocent enthusiasm into cold calculation", according to Variety magazine. In Dogma (1999), he played
5889-555: A salary of $ 5,000 a week on Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour , his salary dropped to $ 85 a week as a freelance writer. For five years he had few gigs , and was living in Greenwich Village on Perry Street in a fourth-floor walk-up. In 1960, to escape his situation, Brooks moved in with a friend, in Los Angeles. In 1961, after his return to New York, he found that Baum had begun suing him for legal separation. Marriage Is
6040-562: A series of comments regarding the Me Too movement against sexual harassment and misconduct. On October 10, Sharon Waxman , a former reporter for The New York Times , mentioned that Damon and Russell Crowe had made direct phone calls to her to vouch for the head of Miramax Italy, Fabrizio Lombardo. In her report, she suspected Lombardo of facilitating incidents of Harvey Weinstein 's sexual misconduct in Europe. However, Damon clarified later that
6191-477: A series of tweets, among them one by Carole Cadwalladr of The Observer in which she wrote, "There isn't enough yuck in the world to describe Matt Damon advertising a Ponzi scheme and comparing it to the moon landings." Jody Rosen in the New York Times said that "There is something unseemly, to put it mildly, about the famous and fabulously wealthy urging crypto on their fans" and "The bleakness of that pitch
Max Brooks - Misplaced Pages Continue
6342-465: A short video endorsing Joe Biden 's presidential campaign. Mel Brooks Melvin James Brooks ( né Kaminsky ; born June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies . A recipient of numerous accolades , he is one of 21 entertainers to win
6493-413: A southern science professor at a large university who uses the principles of engineering on the college's football team and the team begins to win games. It was directed by Joshua Logan , who script-doctored the second act and added a gay subtext to the plot. It ran for 80 performances and received two Tony Award nominations. The animated short film The Critic (1963), a satire of arty, esoteric cinema,
6644-571: A stepdaughter Alexia Barroso (born 1998) from Bozán's previous marriage, and considers her to be his own. The couple has lived in Miami and New York City; and since 2012, they have lived in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles. In 2018, Damon bought a luxury penthouse in New York City's Brooklyn Heights neighborhood for $ 16.5 million. He is a fan of the Boston Red Sox . After
6795-555: A street in New York and having everybody turn and look". Before the film, Damon played the lead in the critically acclaimed drama The Rainmaker (1997), where he was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as "a talented young actor on the brink of stardom." For the role, Damon regained most of the weight he had lost for Courage Under Fire . After meeting Damon on the set of Good Will Hunting , director Steven Spielberg cast him in
6946-405: A while". In March 2018, Damon and Affleck announced they would adopt the inclusion rider agreement in all their future production deals through their company Pearl Street Films . In August 2021, Damon sparked controversy after stating in an interview with The Sunday Times that he had only "months ago" stopped using the word " fag ", saying that it "was commonly used when I was a kid, with
7097-570: A working relationship with the Obama administration , primarily due to his friendship with Jason Furman , his former Harvard roommate who became Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to Obama. In 2012, Damon joined Ben Affleck and John Krasinski in hosting a fundraiser for Democratic Senate nominee Elizabeth Warren . Damon endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election . In October and December 2017, Damon made headlines when he made
7248-449: A writer along with Carl Reiner , Neil Simon , Danny Simon , and head writer Mel Tolkin . The writing staff proved widely influential. Reiner, as creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show , based Morey Amsterdam 's character Buddy Sorell on Brooks. Likewise, the film My Favorite Year (1982) is loosely based on Brooks's experiences as a writer on the show including an encounter with the actor Errol Flynn . Neil Simon's play Laughter on
7399-468: Is Jewish , while his mother was an Italian-American Catholic. Brooks is dyslexic , and recalled that during the time in which he was growing up: ...they didn't even call it a disability back then; it was just "laziness," "goofing off," "you're not trying hard enough." "You can do it but you don't want to do it" — that was a big one of my teachers. And my mother, one of the greatest, most successful actresses of her day, gave up her career, put her career on
7550-772: Is a board member of Tonic Mailstopper (formerly GreenDimes), a company that attempts to halt junk mail delivered to American homes each day. Damon was the founder of the H2O Africa Foundation , the charitable arm of the Running the Sahara expedition, which merged with WaterPartners to create Water.org in July 2009. Water.org has partnered with corporate sponsors to promote awareness and raise funds to support its mission of bringing safe, clean, cost-effective drinking water and sanitation to developing countries. In this context, Damon has been
7701-612: Is aimed at fighting AIDS and poverty in Third World countries. He has appeared in their print and television advertising. He is an ambassador for ONEXONE, a nonprofit foundation committed to supporting, preserving, and improving the lives of children at home in Canada, the United States, and around the world. Damon is a spokesperson for Feeding America , a hunger-relief organization, and a member of their Entertainment Council, participating in their Ad Council public service announcements . He
SECTION 50
#17328697896557852-495: Is an homage to silent comedians Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton , among others. It was not as successful as Brooks's previous two films but did gross $ 36 million. Later that year, he was named fifth on the Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll . Reviews were generally favorable; Roger Ebert praised it as "not only funny, but fun. It's clear at almost every moment that the filmmakers had a ball making it." Regarding
8003-470: Is based on anger and hostility. Growing up in Williamsburg, I learned to clothe it in comedy to spare myself problems—like a punch in the face." Brooks was a small, sickly boy who often was bullied and teased by his classmates because of his size. At age nine, he saw Anything Goes with William Gaxton , Ethel Merman and Victor Moore at the Alvin Theater . After the show, he told his uncle that he
8154-430: Is filled with one-liners and the occasional breaking of the fourth wall . Robin Hood: Men in Tights was Brooks's second time exploring the life of Robin Hood (the first, as mentioned above, being his 1975 TV show When Things Were Rotten ). Life Stinks was a financial and critical failure, but is notable as the only film Brooks directed that is neither a parody nor a film about other films or theater. ( The Twelve Chairs
8305-491: Is his godfather. DeLuise's father Dom DeLuise was a frequent costar of Brooks in his earlier career. Brooks is a voracious reader; in a profile for The New Yorker , Kenneth Tynan describes "Brooks the secret connoisseur, worshiper of good writing, and expert on the Russian classics , with special reverence to Gogol , Turgenev , Dostoevski , and Tolstoy ." In The Producers , Bialystock refers to Bloom as "Prince Myshkin",
8456-462: Is startling." Comedian Jimmy Kimmel has a running gag on his ABC television show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! , where he apologizes for not being able to interview Damon at the end of each show . It culminated in a planned skit on September 12, 2006, when Damon stormed off after having his interview cut short. Damon appeared in several of E! Entertainment's top ten Jimmy Kimmel Live! spoofs. On January 24, 2013, Damon took over his show and mentioned
8607-537: Is tasked with the responsibility of fighting wars. In an interview with the Sunday Herald in January 2003, Damon expressed his support for Gun control with "I actually hate guns. They freak me out." Damon is a supporter of the Democratic Party , and has made several critical attacks on Republican Party figures. However, he also expressed disappointment over the policies of President Barack Obama . He had
8758-619: The World War Z universe. In 2014, Broadway Books published The Harlem Hellfighters , a graphic novel which portrays a fictionalized account of the African American 369th Infantry Regiment 's experiences in World War I , written by Brooks and illustrated by Caanan White. Sony Pictures has purchased the rights to create a film of the novel, with Caleeb Pinkett and James Lassiter producing on behalf of Overbrook Entertainment . He wrote
8909-507: The 78th Venice International Film Festival and earned positive reviews while being a financial failure at the box office. In 2023, Damon starred as Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro in Air , a drama film about the launch of Air Jordan , co-starring and directed by Affleck. It marked the first release from Affleck and Damon's independent production company, Artists Equity , which they had formed in 2022. He also reunited with Christopher Nolan in
9060-537: The 78th Infantry Division as a forward artillery observer . In December 1944, a short while later, Brooks was transferred to the 1104th Engineer Combat Battalion as a combat engineer , participating in the Battle of the Bulge . Of his experience there, Brooks noted: Along the roadside, you'd see bodies wrapped up in mattress covers and stacked in a ditch, and those would be Americans, that could be me. I sang all
9211-785: The AFI Life Achievement Award , in June 2013. In 2014 Brooks was honored in a handprint and footprint ceremony at TCL Chinese Theatre . His concrete handprints include a six-fingered left hand as he wore a prosthetic finger when making his prints. On March 20, 2015, he received a British Film Institute Fellowship from the British Film Institute . Brooks met Florence Baum, a dancer in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes , on Broadway. They were married from 1953 until their divorce in 1962. They had three children. After earning
SECTION 60
#17328697896559362-1116: The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay . He established himself as a leading man by starring as Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Jason Bourne in the Bourne franchise (2002–2007; 2016), and Linus Caldwell in the Ocean's trilogy (2001–2007). He received a nomination for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for playing an astronaut stranded on Mars in The Martian (2015). He also acted in The Rainmaker (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Syriana (2005), The Departed (2006), The Informant! (2009), Invictus (2009), True Grit (2010), Contagion (2011), Ford v Ferrari (2019), Stillwater (2021), Air (2023), and Oppenheimer (2023),
9513-675: The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Producers (1967). He then rose to prominence becoming one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s with The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), Silent Movie (1976), and High Anxiety (1977). Later Brooks made History of the World, Part I (1981), Spaceballs (1987), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). A musical adaptation of his first film, The Producers , ran on Broadway from 2001 to 2007 and earned Brooks three Tony Awards . The project
9664-747: The American Film Institute 's list of the top 100 comedy films of the past 100 years (1900–2000) , all of which were ranked in the top 15: Blazing Saddles at number 6, The Producers at number 11, and Young Frankenstein at number 13. Brooks was born Melvin James Kaminsky on a tenement kitchen table on June 28, 1926, in Brownsville, Brooklyn , to Kate ( née Brookman) and Max Kaminsky, and grew up in Williamsburg . His father's family were Polish Jews from Danzig (Gdańsk, Poland); his mother
9815-595: The Clint Eastwood -directed film Invictus , which is based on the 2008 John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation and features Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela . Invictus earned Damon an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The New Republic observed that he brought "it off with low-key charm and integrity." Damon also lent his voice to
9966-514: The Coen brothers ' remake of the 1969 John Wayne-starring Western True Grit . He also narrated Inside Job , a documentary film about the effects of financial deregulation in the 2007–2008 financial crisis . In 2010, he was one of the highest-grossing actors of all time, ranking 37th. In 2011, he starred in The Adjustment Bureau , Contagion , and We Bought a Zoo . That same year,
10117-913: The Fort Dix , New Jersey , induction center, and was sent to the Field Artillery Replacement Training Center at Fort Sill, Oklahoma for basic training and radio operator training. Brooks was then sent back to Fort Dix for overseas assignment. Brooks says he boarded SS Sea Owl at the Brooklyn Navy Yard around February 15, 1945. A reporter for the United States Department of Defense writes that Brooks arrived in France in November 1944, and later in Belgium, serving with
10268-532: The Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry . Brooks has said that the film "has to do with love more than anything else. I mean when that black guy rides into that Old Western town and even a little old lady says 'Up yours, nigger!', you know that his heart is broken. So it's really the story of that heart being mended." Brooks described the film as "a Jewish western with
10419-548: The Manhattan Marriage Bureau . Their son, Max Brooks , was born in 1972. In 2010, Brooks credited Bancroft as "the guiding force" behind his involvement in developing The Producers and Young Frankenstein for the musical theater, saying of an early meeting with her: "From that day, until her death ... we were glued together." He has remained single since she died, stating in 2023 that "Once you are married to Anne Bancroft, others don't seem to be appealing". According to David DeLuise on Wizards of Waverley Pod , Brooks
10570-412: The Roer River , later building bridges over the Rhine river . In April 1945, Brooks's unit conducted its last reconnaissance missions in the Harz mountains , Germany. With the end of the war in Europe , Brooks joined the Special Services as a comic touring Army bases and he was made acting corporal , put in charge of entertainment at Wiesbaden , and performed at Fort Dix. In June 1946, Brooks
10721-460: The 1960s. Interviewed by Dick Cavett in a series of ads, the Brewmaster (in a German accent, as opposed to the 2000 Year Old Man's Yiddish accent) said he was inside the original Trojan horse and "could've used a six-pack of fresh air". Brooks was involved in the creation of the Broadway musical All American which debuted on Broadway in 1962. He wrote the play with lyrics by Lee Adams and music by Charles Strouse . It starred Ray Bolger as
10872-438: The 23rd Floor (1993) is also loosely based on the production of the show, and the character Ira Stone is based on Brooks. Your Show of Shows ended in 1954 when performer Imogene Coca left to host her own show. Caesar then created Caesar's Hour with most of the same cast and writers (including Brooks and adding Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart ). It ran from 1954 until 1957. Brooks told The New York Times , "When I
11023-524: The EGOT , which includes an Emmy Award , a Grammy Award , an Academy Award , and a Tony Award . He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2010, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2013, a British Film Institute Fellowship in 2015, a National Medal of Arts in 2016, a BAFTA Fellowship in 2017, and the Honorary Academy Award in 2024. Brooks began his career as
11174-564: The English version of the animated film Ponyo , which was released in the United States in August 2009. In March 2010, Damon and Ben Affleck collaborated once again to create another production company titled Pearl Street Films , a Warner Bros. -based production company. That year, he reunited with director Paul Greengrass, who directed him in the Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum , for
11325-545: The Harvard Arts Medal. Damon entered Harvard in 1988, where he appeared in student theater plays, such as Burn This and A... My Name is Alice . Later, he made his film debut at the age of 18, with a single line of dialogue in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza . As a student at Harvard, he acted in small roles such as in the TNT original film Rising Son and the ensemble prep-school drama School Ties . He left
11476-520: The North American box office. In 2021, Damon starred in Tom McCarthy 's crime drama Stillwater , playing an unemployed oil rig worker from Oklahoma who sets out with a French woman to prove his convicted daughter's innocence. The film had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival . IndieWire praised Damon's performance as "graced with a quiet softness that offsets the sheer volume of
11627-582: The Zombie War , a novel on the same subject, set in the ten years following a zombie apocalypse . Paramount Pictures acquired the rights for a film adaptation, and Brad Pitt 's production company, Plan B Entertainment , produced the film . In the October 2006 issue of Fangoria , Brooks stated that he would not be writing the screenplay for the motion picture, as he felt he was not an accomplished enough screenwriter to "do it right". J. Michael Straczynski wrote
11778-513: The action thriller Green Zone , which flopped commercially and received a score of 53% on Rotten Tomatoes and ambivalent reception from critics. He appeared as a guest star in an episode of Arthur , titled "The Making of Arthur", as himself. During season 5 of 30 Rock , he appeared as a guest star in the role of Liz Lemon 's boyfriend in the episodes " I Do Do ", " The Fabian Strategy ", " Live Show ", and " Double-edged Sword ". Damon's 2010 projects included Clint Eastwood's Hereafter and
11929-448: The best reviews of Brooks's career. Even notoriously hard-to-please critic Pauline Kael liked it, saying: "Brooks makes a leap up as a director because, although the comedy doesn't build, he carries the story through ... [He] even has a satisfying windup, which makes this just about the only comedy of recent years that doesn't collapse." In 1975, at the height of his movie career, Brooks tried TV again with When Things Were Rotten ,
12080-643: The biographical film Oppenheimer , playing Leslie Groves , the director of the Manhattan Project . The film was a critical and commercial success. Damon will work with Nolan once again in an as-yet untitled film. Damon, alongside George Clooney , Brad Pitt , Don Cheadle , David Pressman , and Jerry Weintraub , is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch Project , an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur . Damon supports One Campaign, which
12231-472: The brief title role in the 1998 World War II film Saving Private Ryan . He co-starred with Edward Norton in the 1998 poker film Rounders , where he plays a reformed gambler in law school who must return to playing high-stakes poker to help a friend pay off loan sharks . Despite meager earnings at the box-office, it is considered one of the best poker movies of all time. Damon then portrayed antihero Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999),
12382-547: The calls were solely to reassure her of Lombardo's professional qualifications in the film industry. Waxman endorsed Damon's statement on Twitter hours later. Also during this time, Damon said that he had heard a story from Ben Affleck that Gwyneth Paltrow , a co-worker on a feature film of his, had been harassed by Weinstein in 1996, but thought "she had handled it" because they continued to work together, and Weinstein "treated her incredibly respectfully". In another series of interviews during December 2017, Damon advocated for
12533-693: The cast album of The Producers and for Best Long Form Music Video for the DVD Recording the Producers: A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks . He won his first of four Emmy awards in 1967 for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Variety for a Sid Caesar special, and won Emmys in 1997, 1998, and 1999 for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role of Uncle Phil on Mad About You . He won his Academy Award for Original Screenplay (Oscar) in 1968 for The Producers . He won his three Tony awards in 2001 for his work on
12684-429: The character he's playing". That same year saw the release of the historical drama The Last Duel , which he starred in and co-wrote alongside Ben Affleck . The film, set in medieval France and based on the book of the same name , focuses on the true story of a knight, Jean de Carrouges , portrayed by Damon, who challenges his former friend to a judicial duel after he's accused of raping his wife. It premiered at
12835-501: The company's projects was the short-lived mystery-hybrid series Push, Nevada . Damon's attempts at leading characters in romantic dramas such as 2000's All the Pretty Horses and The Legend of Bagger Vance were commercially and critically unsuccessful. Variety said of his work in All the Pretty Horses : "[Damon] just doesn't quite seem like a young man who's spent his life amidst
12986-478: The cryptid Bigfoot . It was released on June 16, 2020. Brooks has a number of other creative credits. As an actor, he has been seen in Roseanne , To Be or Not to Be , Pacific Blue , and 7th Heaven . He also has a career voicing animation: his voice has been featured in the animated shows Batman Beyond , Buzz Lightyear of Star Command , Justice League , and All Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series . During
13137-538: The cryptocurrency trading platform Crypto.com , under which Crypto.com was to make a $ 1 million donation to Water.org. In the announcement, Damon said, "Crypto.com gave us this great donation, which is amazing. The money that I make for the commercials to promote them, I give 100% of that to Water.org as well. So, it's millions of dollars coming in to us." Damon's Crypto.com commercial started rolling out in cinemas late in 2021, and then on television in January 2022, mainly during sports programming such as NFL games. Once it
13288-596: The documentary which he narrated, American Teacher , opened in New York before national screening. Also in 2011, he voiced a krill named Bill in the animated film Happy Feet Two . In January 2012, Damon signed a multiyear deal to be the voice of TD Ameritrade advertisements, replacing Sam Waterston as the discount brokerage's spokesman. Damon donated all fees from the advertisements to charity. In April 2012, Damon filmed Promised Land , directed by Gus Van Sant , which Damon co-wrote with John Krasinski . Damon's next film with frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh
13439-487: The dust and dung of a Texas cattle ranch. Nor does he strike any sparks with [Penelope] Cruz ." He was similarly deemed "uncomfortable being the center" of Robert Redford 's The Legend of Bagger Vance by Peter Rainer of New York magazine. During this period, Damon joined two lucrative film series— Ocean's Trilogy (2001–2007) and Bourne (2002–2016)—and produced the television series Project Greenlight (2001–2005, 2015). He co-starred as thief Linus Caldwell in
13590-514: The early 1990s, Damon and Affleck wrote Good Will Hunting (1997), a screenplay about a young mathematics genius, an extension of a screenplay he wrote for an assignment at Harvard, having integrated advice from director Rob Reiner , screenwriter William Goldman , and writer/director Kevin Smith . He asked Affleck to perform the scenes with him in front of the class and, when Damon later moved into Affleck's Los Angeles apartment, they began working on
13741-485: The edge of a diving board wearing a derby and a large alpaca overcoat with two suitcases full of rocks, and then announced: "Business is terrible! I can't go on!" before jumping, fully clothed into the pool. He was taught by Buddy Rich (who had also grown up in Williamsburg) how to play the drums, and started to earn money as a musician when he was 14. During his time as a drummer, he was given his first opportunity as
13892-625: The face of advertising campaigns to promote Water.org in conjunction with products from major sponsors. In October 2011, Water.org received an $ 8 million grant from the PepsiCo Foundation to scale up WaterCredit, which provides microloans to families throughout India. Damon has been part of promoting those efforts, tying in with the Aquafina and Ethos Water brands of bottled water owned by PepsiCo and Starbucks . Since 2015, Damon has promoted Anheuser-Busch InBev 's Stella Artois beer brand as
14043-604: The film Manchester by the Sea (2016). Damon has performed voice-over work in both animated and documentary films as well as established two production companies with Affleck, Artists Equity , and the former, Pearl Street Films . He has been involved in charitable work with organizations including the One Campaign , H2O Africa Foundation , Feeding America , and Water.org . Damon was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts , on October 8, 1970,
14194-470: The film "a brisk, engrossing and intelligent thriller", adding, "Damon is one hell of an action hero. He does a lot with very little, imbuing his limited dialogue with both rage and sorrow, looking harder and more haunted as the picture progresses". For the film, he earned an Empire Award for Best Actor ; the award's presenter Empire attributed Damon's win to his "astute, underplayed performance, through which he totally eschews movie star vanity". He played
14345-469: The film grossed over $ 225 million at the worldwide box office. The two later parodied their roles from the film in Kevin Smith's 2001 movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back . Speaking of his "overnight success" through Good Will Hunting , Damon said by that time he had been working in the cinema for 11 years, but still found the change "nearly indescribable—going from total obscurity to walking down
14496-689: The film's inside jokes, Ebert wrote that "the thing about Brooks's inside jokes is that their outsides are funny, too." High Anxiety (1977), Brooks's parody of Freudian psychoanalysis , as well as the films of Alfred Hitchcock , was written by Brooks, Ron Clark, Rudy De Luca , and Barry Levinson , and was the first movie Brooks produced himself. Starring Brooks, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman , Harvey Korman, Ron Carey , Howard Morris , and Dick Van Patten , it satirizes such Hitchcock films as Vertigo , Spellbound , Psycho , The Birds , North by Northwest , Dial M for Murder and Suspicion . Brooks plays Professor Richard H. (Harpo) Thorndyke,
14647-443: The first feature-length silent comedy in four decades. Silent Movie (1976) was written by Brooks and Clark, and starred Brooks in his first leading role, with Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Sid Caesar , Bernadette Peters , and in cameo roles playing themselves: Paul Newman , Burt Reynolds , James Caan , Liza Minnelli , Anne Bancroft , and the mime Marcel Marceau , who uttered the film's only word of audible dialogue: "Non!" It
14798-542: The first version of the screenplay. Brooks wrote the introduction for the hardcover collected edition of Dynamite Entertainment 's zombie miniseries Raise the Dead , released in 2007. In 2010, Brooks wrote the IDW comic book mini-series G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds . In 2012, Brooks published Closure, Limited and Other Zombie Tales , featuring the story of that name from The New Dead , along with three other short stories set in
14949-534: The former's first installment, Steven Soderbergh 's 2001 ensemble film Ocean's Eleven , a remake of the Rat Pack 's Ocean's 11 (1960). The role was originally meant for Mark Wahlberg , who refused it in favor of other projects. The film grossed $ 450 million on a budget of $ 83 million. Damon, alongside Affleck and others, produced the documentary series Project Greenlight , aired on HBO and later Bravo , which helped newcomers develop their first film. The series
15100-491: The fourth film in the Bourne film series , Damon reprised his role in 2016's Jason Bourne , reuniting with Paul Greengrass. In 2017, Damon played the lead role in Zhang Yimou 's The Great Wall , a hit internationally and a disappointment at the domestic box office. The film, and Damon's casting, were not well received by critics. Later in 2017, he starred in two satires, George Clooney's 1950s-set Suburbicon , which
15251-447: The full company sings, "next year, Blazing Saddles !" In 2010, Brooks confirmed this, saying that the musical could be finished within a year; however, no creative team or plan has been announced. In 2021, at age 95, Brooks published a memoir titled All About Me! . On October 18, 2021, it was announced that Brooks would write and produce History of the World, Part II , a follow-up TV series on Hulu to his 1981 movie . He received
15402-575: The geopolitical thriller Syriana alongside George Clooney and Jeffrey Wright . The film focuses on petroleum politics and the global influence of the oil industry. Damon says starring in the film broadened his understanding of the oil industry and that he hoped the people would talk about the film afterward. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was mainly impressed with Clooney's acting, but also found Damon's performance "whiplash". In 2006, Damon joined Robert De Niro in The Good Shepherd as
15553-499: The last of which is his highest-grossing feature. On television, Damon portrayed Scott Thorson in the HBO biopic Behind the Candelabra (2013), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award . He was Emmy-nominated for his guest role in 30 Rock in 2011 and hosting Saturday Night Live in 2019. He also produced the reality series Project Greenlight (2001–2015) as well as
15704-753: The long-standing feud and having been bumped from years of shows. It involved celebrities who were previously involved in the "feud", including Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, and Sarah Silverman . Damon met his Argentine wife, Luciana Bozán, while filming Stuck on You in Miami in April 2003. They became engaged in September 2005 and married in a private civil ceremony at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau on December 9, 2005. They have three daughters together born in June 2006, August 2008, and October 2010. He also has
15855-563: The master inventor, in the animated film Robots (2005), and in the later animated film Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) he had a cameo appearance as Albert Einstein . He returned, to voice Dracula's father, Vlad , in Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) and Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018). Brooks joked about the concept of a musical adaptation of Blazing Saddles in the final number in Young Frankenstein , in which
16006-425: The moderate financial success of the film The Producers , Glazier financed Brooks's next film, The Twelve Chairs (1970). Loosely based on Ilf and Petrov 's 1928 Russian novel of the same name about greedy materialism in post-revolutionary Russia, it stars Ron Moody , Frank Langella and Dom DeLuise as three men individually searching for a fortune in diamonds hidden in a set of 12 antique chairs. Brooks makes
16157-566: The musical The Producers , for Best Musical, Best Original Musical Score, and Best Book of a Musical. Brooks also won a Hugo Award and Nebula Award for Young Frankenstein . In a 2005 poll by Channel 4 to find The Comedian's Comedian , he was voted No. 50 of the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. The American Film Institute (AFI) lists three of Brooks's films on its AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list: Blazing Saddles (#6), The Producers (#11), and Young Frankenstein (#13). On December 5, 2009, Brooks
16308-510: The nationwide college circuit , then in revivals and on home video. It premiered to a limited audience in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 22, 1967, before achieving a wide release in 1968. Peter Sellers personally championed the film, paying out of pocket to take out full page ads in Variety and The New York Times . Brooks, along with his collaborator Thomas Meehan , later adapted it into
16459-471: The network aired only five of the eleven produced episodes before canceling the series. During the next decade, Brooks directed Life Stinks (1991), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). People magazine wrote, "Anyone in a mood for a hearty laugh couldn't do better than Robin Hood: Men in Tights , which gave fans a parody of Robin Hood , especially Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves ." Like Brooks's other films, it
16610-406: The profits for the film, which went on to become the most successful of all time. Damon said later: "I will go down in history… you will never meet an actor who turned down more money." He made a guest appearance in 2009 on the sixth-season finale of Entourage as himself, where he tries to pressure Vincent Chase ( Adrian Grenier ) into donating to his real foundation ONEXONE . His next role
16761-631: The rights to 84 Charing Cross Road for his wife, Anne Bancroft, for many years. He also produced the comedy Fatso (1980) that Bancroft directed. In 1981, Brooks joked that the only genres that he hadn't spoofed were historical epics and Biblical spectacles. History of the World Part I was a tongue-in-cheek look at human culture from the Dawn of Man to the French Revolution . Written, produced and directed by Brooks, with narration by Orson Welles , it
16912-531: The role of Spirit in the animated film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) and later played a conjoined twin in Stuck on You (2003), which received a mixed critical reception. His major releases in 2004 included starring roles in the sequels The Bourne Supremacy and Ocean's Twelve . Both films earned more than $ 280 million at the box-office. In a review for The Bourne Supremacy , BBC 's Nev Pierce called
17063-421: The run, chasing—and being pursued". Brooks endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election in his first-ever public endorsement of a political candidate. He endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election . Interviews Matt Damon Matthew Paige Damon ( / ˈ d eɪ m ə n / DAY -mən ; born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, film producer, and screenwriter. He
17214-604: The school in 1992, a semester (12 credits) shy of completing his Bachelor of Arts in English to feature in Geronimo: An American Legend in Los Angeles, erroneously expecting the movie to become a big success. Damon next appeared as an opiate -addicted soldier in 1996's Courage Under Fire , for which he lost 40 pounds (18 kg) in 100 days on a self-prescribed diet and fitness regimen. Courage Under Fire gained him critical notice, when The Washington Post labeled his performance "impressive". During
17365-693: The score to a Broadway musical adaptation of Young Frankenstein , which he says is "perhaps the best movie [he] ever made". The world premiere was at Seattle's Paramount Theater, between August 7, 2007, and September 1, 2007, after which it opened on Broadway at the former Lyric Theater (then the Hilton Theatre), New York, on October 11, 2007. It earned mixed reviews from the critics. In the 2000s, Brooks worked on an animated series sequel to Spaceballs called Spaceballs: The Animated Series , which premiered on September 21, 2008, on G4 TV . Brooks has also supplied vocal roles for animation. He voiced Bigweld,
17516-408: The screen." The Departed received critical acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Picture . According to Forbes in August 2007, Damon was the most bankable star of the actors reviewed, his last three films at that time averaged US$ 29 at the box office for every dollar he earned. Two of his major releases in 2007 were the films Ocean's Thirteen and The Bourne Ultimatum , which were
17667-562: The script more seriously. The film, which they wrote mainly during improvisation sessions, was set partly in their hometown of Cambridge, and drew from their own experiences. They sold the screenplay to Castle Rock in 1994, but after a conflict with the company, they convinced Miramax to purchase the script. The film received critical praise; Quentin Curtis of The Daily Telegraph found "real wit and vigour, and some depth" in their writing and Emanuel Levy of Variety wrote that Damon "gives
17818-409: The second son of Kent Telfer Damon (1942–2017), a stockbroker, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige (b. 1946), an early childhood education professor at Lesley University . His father had English and Scottish ancestry, while his mother is of Finnish and Swedish descent; her family surname had been changed from Pajari to Paige. Damon and his family moved to Newton for two years. His parents divorced when he
17969-539: The second-highest US grossing film of 1974, grossing $ 119.5 million in the United States and Canada. It was nominated for three Academy Awards : Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Madeline Kahn, Best Film Editing , and Best Music, Original Song . It won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen ; and in 2006 it was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by
18120-778: The shelf, to raise me, to be my educational advocate and to teach herself about dyslexia. ... She took, every year, all of my school books that I had to read to the Institute for the Blind and had them all read onto audio cassette so I could listen to my reading list. And if I hadn't been able to do that, I wouldn't have graduated high school. I can literally say that not only did my mother give me my life, she saved my life. Brooks attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California . He studied at Pitzer College in Claremont, California , where he earned
18271-429: The spring of 1974. It starred Wilder, Marty Feldman , Peter Boyle , Teri Garr , Madeline Kahn , Cloris Leachman and Kenneth Mars , with Gene Hackman in a cameo role. Brooks' voice can be heard three times: as the wolf howl when the characters are on their way to the castle; as the voice of Victor Frankenstein, when the characters discover the laboratory; and as the sound of a cat when Gene Wilder accidentally throws
18422-715: The start of the third season of Lost Tapes , he was cast as himself in the zombie episode, telling the audience about how zombies come to be. He also appeared on the Spike TV series Deadliest Warrior , in which he represented the zombie team in the "Vampires vs. Zombies" episode, as one of the zombie experts along with Matt Mogk, founder of the Zombie Research Society. Brooks has been married to playwright Michelle Kholos since 2003. They have one son and live in Venice, California . In October 2020, Brooks and his father appeared in
18573-487: The story for the 2016 film The Great Wall , starring Matt Damon . In 2016, Brooks was invited to MineCon and announced that he was working on a new novel based on Minecraft , titled Minecraft: The Island , and in 2021, he published the sequel, Minecraft: The Mountain . In August 2019, Brooks announced a new book, entitled Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre , about
18724-573: The team won the 2007 World Series , he narrated the commemorative DVD release of the event. He has competed in several World Series of Poker (WSOP) events, including the 2010 World Series of Poker main event. He was eliminated from the 1998 WSOP by poker professional Doyle Brunson . While discussing the Iraq War on Hardball with Chris Matthews in December 2006, Damon expressed concern about inequities across socioeconomic classes with regard to who
18875-590: The third installments of their respective film series. Both films earned more than $ 300 million at the box-office. Damon had an uncredited cameo in Francis Ford Coppola 's Youth Without Youth (2007) and another cameo in the 2008 Che Guevara biopic Che . While he was working on the Bourne films, Damon declined an offer from James Cameron to star in his upcoming film Avatar , as he did not want to break his Bourne contract. Cameron offered Damon 10% of
19026-502: The time ... I never wanted to think about it ... Death is the enemy of everyone, and even though you hate Nazis, death is more of an enemy than a German soldier. Stationed in Saarbrücken and Baumholder , the battalion was responsible for clearing booby-trapped buildings and defusing land mines as the Allies advanced into Nazi Germany. Brooks was tasked with land mine location; defusing
19177-433: The world and showing courage". Brooks has consistently expressed pride in his Jewish identity. In 2021, Brooks told NPR's Terry Gross : "I love being a Jew, I love Jewish humor..." On Jewish cinema, Brooks said, "They can be anything and anywhere ... if there's a tribal thing, like, the 'please God, protect us' feeling ... we don't know where and how it's gonna come out. Avatar was a Jewish movie ... these people on
19328-500: Was Behind the Candelabra , a drama about the life of pianist/entertainer Liberace (played by Michael Douglas ) with Damon playing Liberace's longtime partner Scott Thorson . The film premiered on HBO on May 26, 2013. Damon starred in the science fiction film Elysium (2013), where he played former car-thief-turned-factory-worker Max DeCosta. He also appeared in the science fiction movie The Zero Theorem in 2013, directed by Terry Gilliam . That same year, Damon appeared in
19479-565: Was honorably discharged from the Army as a corporal . After the war, Brooks's mother had secured him a job as a clerk at the Brooklyn Navy Yard , but Brooks "got into a taxi and ordered the driver to take him to the Catskills", where he started working in various Borscht Belt resorts and nightclubs in the Catskill Mountains as a drummer and pianist. When a regular comic at one of the clubs
19630-457: Was Steven Soderbergh's dark comedy The Informant! (2009), in which his Golden Globe-nominated work was described by Entertainment Weekly as such: "The star – who has quietly and steadily turned into a great Everyman actor – is in nimble control as he reveals his character's deep crazies." Also in 2009, Damon portrayed South Africa national rugby union team captain François Pienaar in
19781-517: Was a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant from Kyiv , in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine). He had three older brothers: Irving, Lenny, and Bernie. His father died of tuberculosis of the kidney at 34 when Brooks was two years old. He has said of his father's death, "There's an outrage there. I may be angry at God, or at the world, for that. And I'm sure a lot of my comedy
19932-430: Was a fledgling comedy writer working for Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows , our head writer was Mel Tolkin... I really looked up to him. (By the way, I was 5-foot-7 and he was six feet tall.) He was a bona fide intellectual, thoroughly steeped in the traditions of great Russian literature. One day he handed me a book. He said to me, 'Mel, you're an animal from Brooklyn, but I think you have the beginnings of something called
20083-511: Was a good student. He acted in several high-school theater productions, and has credited his drama teacher, Gerry Speca, as having had an important artistic influence on him, although noting wryly that Speca had given Ben Affleck (Damon's close friend and schoolmate) the "biggest roles and longest speeches". He attended Harvard University as a member of the class of 1992, residing in Lowell House , but left before receiving his degree to take
20234-463: Was a parody of the original novel.) Brooks created the musical adaptation of his film The Producers on the Broadway in 2001. The production starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick received critical acclaim and was a significant box office success. The New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley praised the production writing, "Mr. Brooks has taken what could have been overblown camp into
20385-460: Was another modest financial hit, earning $ 31 million. It received mixed critical reviews. Critic Pauline Kael , who for years had been critical of Brooks, said, "Either you get stuck thinking about the bad taste or you let yourself laugh at the obscenity in the humor as you do Buñuel 's perverse dirty jokes." Brooks produced and starred in (but did not write or direct) a remake of Ernst Lubitsch 's 1942 film To Be or Not to Be . His 1983 version
20536-776: Was broadcast widely on television, it sparked much criticism, as did its accompanying "making of" featurette. In The Independent , Nathan Place wrote, "Twitter is cringing after a TV commercial starring Matt Damon compared trading cryptocurrency to mankind's greatest achievements. In the ad, which aired during Sunday night’s NFL games, Mr Damon makes an abstract plug for crypto.com – a platform for exchanging digital currencies like Bitcoin – while striding past images of explorers and astronauts. The New Zealand Herald published an article by Lexie Cartwright summing up viewer reaction: "Matt Damon's new commercial plugging cryptocurrency has been absolutely savaged on social media, with viewers dubbing it 'insulting' and 'disgusting'." The story included
20687-483: Was conceived by Brooks and directed by Ernest Pintoff . Brooks supplied running commentary as the baffled moviegoer trying to make sense of the obscure visuals. It won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film . With comedy writer Buck Henry , Brooks created a TV comedy show titled Get Smart , about a bumbling James Bond –inspired spy. Brooks said, "I was sick of looking at all those nice sensible situation comedies. They were such distortions of life... I wanted to do
20838-411: Was directed by Alan Johnson and starred Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning , Tim Matheson , Jose Ferrer and Christopher Lloyd . It generated international publicity by featuring a controversial song on its soundtrack—" To Be or Not to Be (The Hitler Rap) "—satirizing German society in the 1940s, with Brooks playing Hitler. The second movie Brooks directed in the 1980s was Spaceballs (1987),
20989-404: Was done by a specialist. Brooks has stated that when he heard Germans singing over loudspeakers, he responded by singing into a bullhorn , Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo' Bye!) by American-Jewish singer Al Jolson . Brooks spent time in the stockade after taking an anti-Semitic heckler's helmet off and smashing him in the head with his mess kit. His unit constructed the first Bailey bridge over
21140-416: Was going to be." On one of these occasions, Reiner's suggestion concerned a 2000-year-old man who had witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (who "came in the store but never bought anything"), had been married several hundred times and had "over forty-two thousand children, and not one comes to visit me". At first Brooks and Reiner only performed the routine for friends but, by the late 1950s, it gained
21291-475: Was jobless for six months, and many of his films during that period under-performed at the box-office. He doubted the film's financial prospects, but it proved a commercial success. Reviews for the film were also positive; Roger Ebert praised it for its ability to absorb the viewer in its "spycraft" and "Damon's ability to be focused and sincere". For his role, Entertainment Weekly named Damon among "the decade's best mixer of brawn and brains." Damon voiced
21442-570: Was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program in 2002, 2004, and 2005. Damon later said that he and Affleck felt proud that the show helped launch the careers of several directors; Damon later served as the executive producer of a number of projects directed by the winners of the show. Damon began 2002 with writing and starring in Gerry , a drama about two friends who forget to bring water and food when they go hiking in
21593-467: Was not going to work in the garment district like everyone else but instead wanted to go into show business. When Brooks was 14 he gained employment as a pool-side tummler (entertainer) at the Butler Lodge, a second-rate Borscht Belt hotel, where he met 18-year-old Sid Caesar . Brooks kept his guests amused with his crazy antics. In a Playboy interview, he explained that one day he stood at
21744-579: Was one of five recipients of the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. He was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 23, 2010, with a motion pictures star located at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard . American Masters produced a biography on Brooks which premiered May 20, 2013, on PBS . The AFI presented Brooks with its highest tribute,
21895-584: Was ranked among Forbes ' most bankable stars in 2007, and in 2010 was one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. He has received various awards and nominations , including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards , in addition to nominations for three British Academy Film Awards and seven Primetime Emmy Awards . Damon made his acting debut in the film Mystic Pizza (1988) before gaining prominence in 1997 when he and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting , which won them
22046-699: Was recruited to take the Army General Classification Test , a Stanford-Binet -type IQ test . He made high scores and was sent to the Army Specialized Training Program at the Virginia Military Institute to be taught electrical engineering , horse riding, and saber fighting. In 1944, Brooks was drafted into the Army. Twelve weeks later, when he turned 18, he officially joined the United States Army at
22197-443: Was released in October, and Alexander Payne 's comedy Downsizing , which was released in December. In September 2018, he portrayed jurist Brett Kavanaugh on the late night sketch series Saturday Night Live . In 2019, Damon portrayed Carroll Shelby in the action biographical drama Ford v Ferrari , directed by James Mangold . As of 2021 , the films in which he had appeared had collectively earned over $ 3.88 billion at
22348-478: Was remade into a musical film in 2005 . He wrote and produced the Hulu series History of the World, Part II (2023). Brooks was married to actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005. Their son Max Brooks is an actor and author, known for his novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2006). In 2021, Mel Brooks published his memoir titled All About Me! . Three of his films are included on
22499-477: Was so brazen in its satire that major studios would not touch it, nor would many exhibitors. Brooks finally found an independent distributor who released it as an art film, a specialized attraction. At the 41st Academy Awards , Brooks won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film over fellow writers Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes . The Producers became a smash underground hit, first on
22650-679: Was too sick to perform, Brooks started working as a stand-up comic, telling jokes and doing movie-star impressions. He also began acting in summer stock in Red Bank, New Jersey, and did some radio work. He eventually worked his way up to the comically aggressive job of tummler at Grossinger's , one of the Borscht Belt's most famous resorts. In the years after the war, Brooks's hero was comedian Sid Caesar. Back in New York, Brooks would slink around trying to catch Caesar in between meetings to pitch him joke ideas. Eventually Caesar cracked and paid Brooks
22801-519: Was two years old, and he and his brother returned with their mother to Cambridge, where they lived in a six-family communal house. His brother, Kyle, is a sculptor and artist. Damon has said that, as a teenager, he had felt lonely, as if he did not belong, and that his mother's by-the-book approach to child-rearing had made it hard for him to define his own identity. Damon attended Cambridge Alternative School and Cambridge Rindge and Latin School , and
#654345