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People Weekly July 20 1987

May The Farce Be With Him: Spaceballs Rockets Mel Brooks Into Lunatic Orbit
by Margot Dougherty
Originally published in People Weekly July 20 1987

On Jan. 13 of this year Mel Brooks sank into his personalized director's chair on the Lorimar lot, directly above the pool where Esther Williams swam in the 1940s. He took in the huge spaceship to his left, the factotums of a deserted Planet Vega to his right, and let out an intergalactically recognizable sigh of fatigue. It was Day 56 of shooting for Spaceballs, the Star Wars send-up with borscht-belt flavoring, and the writer-director-producer-actor was fading. But with the $22.7 million production still three weeks from completion, naptime was not in the script. Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) from the Planet Druidia was, however. The Druish Princess had been kidnapped on orders from evil President Skroob (Brooks). Lone Starr (Bill Pullman), a Luke Skywalker clone, set out in his interstellar Winnebago to free her, but Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis), the baby-faced Darth Vader-type, thwarted his every move. Now it was time for a duel. The actors pulled out their Schwartzes (laser swords) and squared off. While Brooks's co-writers, Ronny Graham and Thomas Meehan, stood on the sidelines praying for a payoff, the director watched the action on his "video village," a bank of closed-circuit monitors. Each time Moranis delivered his line, "I see your Schwartz is as big as mine; let's see how you handle it," Brooks dissolved in laughter. "Excellent!" he roared.

Call it vintage Brooks. The key ingredient -- juvenile humor delivered with the subtlety of a Crazy Eddie commercial -- was in place. And it had to be, because Brooks may have had more riding on this film than on any other in his career.

With Spaceballs, the king of cinematic slapstick completes two decades of feature filmmaking. As a visit to the set suggested, Brooks still gets a kick out of what he does. But the question of the moment was whether audiences still get a kick out of what he does. Ten years have passed since Brooks's last hit, the Hitchcock-inspired High Anxiety. In between he has made only two movies, History of the World, Part I (1981) and To Be or Not To Be (1983), a laughless, sour pair that earned neither money nor -- most damaging to the pulsing Brooks ego -- admiring reviews. At this point in his career, Brooks is the Reggie Jackson of comedy, high on the list of career home runs (The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein) and high in career strikeouts. What he needs and wants is to feel the solid thwack of hitting one more outta the park.

Part of the problem is age -- not his (he's 61), but his audience's. Brooks must now reach the young ticket buyers who are more familiar with Police Academy movies than with those their parents presumably laughed at -- i.e. Brooks's. Like Daphne Zuniga, 24, who most emphatically was not a Brooks fan before being cast in Spaceballs, they might find his films on first impression "too crass and just not funny." Working with the man, however, gave Zuniga a different perspective. "I have this image of Mel as totally wacko and out-to-lunch. And he is. But he's also really perceptive, real sensitive in ways that make actors respond."

Fact is, Brooks is a mass of contradictions. He makes movies that revel in high-volume mayhem, but his company, Brooksfilms, has produced such serious, widely acclaimed films as The Elephant Man and My Favorite Year. He is a connoisseur of fine art and the exquisitely timed fart joke. Friends predicted his marriage to actress Anne Bancroft, 55, would last three months; they have been wed 22 years. In his downtime he reads Tolstoy and hangs around with his son, Max, 15.

"The image of a wacko is important to me, even though it's not really me," says Brooks. "It's a comforting image for people who want to see a happy, wacko movie. And the real me takes refuge in it. If people think I'm a wacko, I don't have to reveal anything. I can keep whatever is truly me private. Every celebrity fights for anonymity. My anonymity is the serious Mel Brooks."

Maybe he's been too anonymous of late. He admits that running Brooksfilms has siphoned off much of his time. Perhaps too much comic energy has gone with it. But whatever the reason for his recent failures, Brooks threw himself into Spaceballs with feverish intent. "Unlike To Be or Not To Be, we were going for everything," says co-writer Meehan. "It's much more of a vulgar picture, full of wild, low comedy." In Brooks's opinion, "It's the best experience I've had making a movie since Blazing Saddles."

For all his contradictions, one idea is central to Brooks. "Comedy," he says, "is the vanguard of life. It's the joyous point of it all for me. It's the opposite of death -- a protest and scream against death. I scream to the heavens, 'I'm alive! I'm alive! Listen, people are laughing! Listen!"

So they are. And buying tickets. Spaceballs grossed $20 million in its first two weeks. More gratifying to Brooks, the movie is earning him praise. "Extremely funny -- buoyantly tasteless," said the Wall Street Journal. "Eight trillion on the laugh meter," crowed Today's Gene Shalit. Chutzpah blazing, Mel Brooks is back in the saddle again.

And now Mel Brooks presents Spaceballs: The Diary Excerpts from the shockingly intimate, nearly illegible and, frankly, pretty awful notebooks kept by Mel Brooks during the filming, suggesting that the man was laboring under terrible strain.

Oct. 28 Yuma, Ariz. Started filming Spaceballs in the middle of the desert. 115 degrees in the shade. Film melted. To work like this you really need a sense of Yuma.
Oct. 30 Cast and crew are bearing up magnificently. They know in order to make a great movie, you have to make great sacrifices. Today it was the location manager.
Nov. 5 John Candy started work today. He plays Barf, a space creature who's half man, half dog. He's his own best friend. And the most obedient actor I've ever directed.
Nov. 12 Our technical adviser is amazing. He's seen the Star Wars trilogy 243 times. (That's 11 more times than George Lucas.)
Nov. 20 Today I directed myself in the role of President Skroob. The first scene was a mess. I forgot all my lines. But that happens a lot to actors who play presidents.
Dec. 1 Los Angeles. Started filming on the Lorimar lot. Sacred ground. I'm playing the 8,000-year- old wise man, Yogurt, who's only 3 ft. tall. After all these years, Hollywood has finally brought me to my knees.
Dec. 8 Blew my lines as Yogurt. The director was so insulting, I walked off the set, locked myself in my dressing room and refused to return to work until he apologized.
Dec. 11 Third day in my room. Suddenly I remember -- I'm the director! Apologized to myself, kissed me on both cheeks, sent myself flowers and resumed filming.
Dec. 28 I met with the merchandising people, Baubles-R-Us. By July we'll be marketing Spaceballs . . . the T-shirt, Spaceballs . . . the lunch pail, Spaceballs . . . the place mat and Spaceballs . . . the toilet paper.
Jan. 10 Yogurt has gold skin and I've developed an allergy to the makeup. My doctor says it's just Jewish gilt.
Feb. 2 The wrap. Well, we gave it our best shot. So what if the cameras collided, the klieg lights exploded and the deathbeam destroyed the parking lot? What's really important is we brought the picture in on time. On budget. And, mostly, on Maalox.
Feb. 4 The wrap party. I guess my invitation got lost in the mail.
Feb. 5 Meeting with writers to start new script, Spaceballs, Chapter Two: The Search for New Financing.

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