There was a note:
My dear Mel,
What a splendid entertainment, one that should give you no anxieties of any kind.
I thank you most humbly for your dedication and I offer you further thanks on behalf of the Golden Gate Bridge.
With kindest regards and again my warmest congratulations.
Hitch
Needless to say, all my worries disappeared. If there was one person in the world I really wanted to like the picture, it was Alfred Hitchcock, and god bless him, he did. And as a thrilling bonus, I could now refer to him as “Hitch.”
* * *
—
Hitch knew something not everyone knew—that I had become a devotee of fine wines and had a wine cellar featuring some really classic vintages. I don’t know a lot, but I do know a lot about wine. （I’m not bragging. It’s just a fact.）
I fell in love with wine when I went to dinner one night at Gene Wilder’s house in the Village over fifty years ago. Up until then I thought wine was made by Manischewitz—a sweet wine that Jews drink on Passover. I had no idea what was in my mouth when Gene poured me a glass of wine at that fateful dinner. All I knew was that it was NOT Manischewitz, and that it was sublime.
“What is this wine?” I asked him.
He said it was Nuit-Saint-Georges, a French pinot noir from a sub-region of Burgundy’s C?te de Nuits. All I can tell you is that it was a profound taste revelation!
Ever since that night I have loved good red wine. Often French, sometimes Italian, and occasionally something delicious from the Napa Valley. And if I go to a Passover dinner, I bring a bottle of my own wine. No more Manischewitz for this guy!
Here is the note that Alfred Hitchcock sent me, along with that beautiful case of wine.
I never got around to going as far as planting grapes and establishing a Mel Brooks vineyard. But funnily enough a couple of guys who make wine up in Napa Valley named Scotti Stark and Michael DeSantis created a wine they dedicated to a signature phrase from Blazing Saddles. In the movie, when making a speech as the governor I expect a very big affirmative response from the audience and when I don’t get it I angrily point to a man in the crowd and say, “I didn’t get a HARRUMPH out of that guy!”
They seized on that word and with my blessing made a beautiful cabernet sauvignon called Harumph. So if you’re disappointed when you don’t get a “harrumph” out of your audience, you can always buy a great bottle of Harumph wine instead.
Chapter 16
Brooksfilms
High Anxiety was actually the start of a new chapter in my career. Not only was I writing it with my co-writers, directing it, and starring in it, but for the first time I was also the producer. It was a natural outcome of overseeing my movies at every stage from script to screen. By this time, I was closely following their distribution and taking a hand in advertising, publicity, and where and how the film was being released.
In order to do all this, I needed help. When I told Anne that I needed someone to assist me in this new job of producing she immediately said, “I’ve got the guy.”
Stuart Cornfeld joined me as my assistant producer on High Anxiety and became a part of my team. My wife had met Stuart when they worked together at a new program she was involved in called the Directing Workshop for Women at AFI, the American Film Institute. In addition to working with me, Stuart was also helping Anne develop her first film as a writer/director, Fatso. Anne was going to write it, star in it, and direct it. It was about an overweight Italian man whose sister is determined to get him to lose weight so he can be healthy. Anne would play the sister and Dom DeLuise would play the brother. Anne wrote the Fatso script specifically for Dom, who was a good friend of ours at that point. It was very close to her heart because she was from an Italian family and knew better than anybody how wacky, funny, and touching their behavior could be.
It was a lucky day for both Anne and me when we found Stuart. When Laddie agreed to green-light Fatso at Twentieth Century Fox, Anne asked Stuart to produce it. It was to become the first film of my new company, Brooksfilms.
Why Brooksfilms? Well, because I had a problem. If the name Mel Brooks was on a movie screen, the audience would expect to see a Mel Brooks comedy. It was Pavlovian! Ring the bell, and the dog salivates. Put the name Mel Brooks on the screen, and the audience is already laughing.
I remembered a thought that Max Liebman, the producer of Your Show of Shows, espoused one day in the writers’ room. He said, “Sometimes what makes you breaks you.” In a strange way, that thought was coming home to roost. What was helping me gain ascendance in comedy was also limiting me because the name Mel Brooks meant “expect to laugh,” which constrained me as far as making films that were not meant to just make you laugh but to make you experience a whole range of thoughts and feelings.