Where is Mel Brooks now: 100 and still working

If you grew up laughing at a Black sheriff riding into a racist Old West town, or at a green monster screaming that it was alive, you already know Mel Brooks even if you don't remember his name. Those films —Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein— came from the same man. And if you have a few gray hairs yourself, you have probably wondered what became of him.

Well, he is still here. He never slipped away quietly the way some legends do. He never left.

The 100-year-old man

He was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926, in Brooklyn, New York. The son of immigrants, the youngest of four boys. His father died when he was 2; his mother Kate and his brothers raised him. He took "Brooks" from his mother's maiden name, Brookman.

At 17 he enlisted in the Army and ended up defusing land mines in World War II, at the Battle of the Bulge. He put it this way at 99: "I got through World War II as a soldier because I made my buddies in the Army laugh."

Then came everything else: writing for Sid Caesar's show, the "2000 Year Old Man" records with Carl Reiner, co-creating Get Smart, the Oscar for The Producers screenplay (1967), and that impossible year, 1974, when he released two classics at once: Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. He is one of the very few EGOT winners —Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony— and his Broadway Producers won 12 Tony Awards, a record that still stands.

Notice the detail: in 2024, at 98, the Academy gave him an honorary Oscar for his contribution to film. Nearly six decades after he won the first one.

What he has done in 2024–2026

In 2023, History of the World, Part II premiered on Hulu. Part two took forty years to arrive. He narrated it and appeared in it.

In January 2026, HBO premiered the documentary Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!, directed by Judd Apatow. In it he says it plainly: "I was born to make people laugh. So, I do that."

In April 2026, at CinemaCon, he announced —by video, since he didn't travel to Las Vegas— the title of the Spaceballs sequel: Spaceballs: The New One. And he joked the way only he can: it won't be called "The Search for More Money" because "after all these years, I found the money. It was in my basement." The film hits theaters April 23, 2027. He is co-producing and returning as Yogurt and President Skroob. And here's the detail: Rick Moranis is back as Dark Helmet.

Days before turning 100, Josh Gad posted a photo with him on Instagram. Mel, smiling, wearing a hat that reads "Spaceballs The Crew Hat." The comments all said the same thing: he looks great.

And in 2026 he donated thousands of documents and photographs to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York. His statement: "I've always been proud to say that I make people laugh for a living… knowing that my work will have a home at comedy's national archive and continue making people laugh leaves me with a deep sense of pride."

And he keeps going: he appeared on an episode of Somebody Feed Phil and will voice a character in the animated film The Land of Sometimes.

What he says about laughter (and what he doesn't)

In January 2026, at 99, PEOPLE magazine asked him about the secret. His answer: "I think laughing keeps you healthy and happy."

He was talking about himself and his two great friends, Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner: "We all laughed a lot… It's an amazing sound, people laughing at something I created. Making comedy is a great job. It keeps you sane and happy. It gives you a reason to be alive."

Now, let me be straight with you about this: that's a 99-year-old comedian talking, not a doctor. It is not a prescription. It's his way of saying that having a reason to get up every morning —people laughing at something you made— weighs more than it looks. He also credits the courage he inherited from his mother: "She was an amazing example of courage. Losing her husband when she was just a young gal, raising four kids. What an example of a courageous life."

The part that didn't make the awards reel

He was widowed in 2005. Anne Bancroft —the unforgettable Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate— died of cancer at 73, after 41 years of marriage. Before that he was married to Florence Baum, from 1951 to 1962, the mother of three of his children. His youngest son, Max Brooks —of World War Z fame— calls him "a true genius."

And he lost his two great partners in crime: Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner, with whom he had dinner several times a week until Reiner died in 2020, at 98.

There is one anecdote I love: in 2009, at the White House, Obama told him he had seen Blazing Saddles at age 10. Brooks replied that they shouldn't have let him into the theater, given the film's rating. Obama joked that he had used a fake ID. That is Mel Brooks: not even in front of the president does he stop being the funny guy.

What you can see from the outside

This series' question: what did he do right? Let me be honest with you: nobody has the recipe for reaching 100. Not even him. Genes, luck, and a good doctor weigh enormously, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. But there are things visible from the outside —he has shown them himself— and none of them cost money.

First: he never let go of his craft. At 99 he is producing a sequel that premieres when he is 101. Having something that gets you out of bed every morning is not a luxury. It is fuel.

Second: his people. Decades of dinners with Carl Reiner, a son who admires him, younger colleagues like Josh Gad who celebrate him. Laughing is a plural verb: it needs an audience.

Third: humor as a stance toward life. Making others laugh —not just laughing— gave him, in his own words, "a reason to be alive." That is not medicine. It is meaning.

And this part is serious: none of this is medical advice, nor a promise that laughing more will get you to 100. Every body is different. But having a reason to get up, having people to laugh with, and not taking life so seriously… that has never hurt anyone.