It was a great evening, even if it wasn't quite what was advertised. It was supposed to be Mel Brooks interviewing Dick Cavett. It turned out to be Dick Cavett sitting there enjoying, as we all did, An Evening With Mel Brooks, complete with an appearance by Special Guest Star Carl Reiner. What Cavett did was to sit there like all of us, howling at Brooks telling anecdotes and diving into wild improvisations. Every so often, he [Cavett] interjected a very funny story of his own but if you hadn't known the evening was supposed to be about him and his new book, little that was on that stage would have clued you in.
Highlights? Dick and Mel got to discussing how the 2000 Year Old Man had come to be and Mel deferred to Mr. Reiner, who was seated in the audience. They handed him a microphone and he rose and told the story…then he and Mel gave us a brief sample. I'll bet most of those in the house thought that alone was worth the price of admission. Mel told about his relationship with Alfred Hitchcock during the making of High Anxiety. He told how Blazing Saddles came to be. He revealed how you hide from Marty Feldman. (You stand right in front of him.) He talked about the time he robbed Howie Morris of everything he owned.
He did impressions. He told a hilarious tale which he said was his most embarrassing moment, which came when he was a guest on the old game show, Eye Guess. After the taping, he saw the host, Bill Cullen, walking towards him with shaky, unbalanced legs. He thought Cullen was trying to amuse him by imitating Jerry Lewis…so Mel went into the same shaky walk. It was only later that he learned Cullen walked that way because he'd had Polio.
Getting back to Blazing Saddles: An audience member asked about reports that it would be the next Brooks musical on Broadway. I'm not sure I got all of Mel's reply — the audio wasn't great up in the balcony where Carolyn and I were — but I believe he said he's moving forward with the show but not for Broadway. He believes the critics would just savage it, no matter what was on the stage. Unsaid but implicit was the phrase, "…like they did with Young Frankenstein." What he now has in mind, he told us, is to do it around the country where he believes it will be wildly successful and to maybe, much later, take it to New York. I gather this tour is not something that's going to happen soon.
That was one of the few good questions from the floor. I've written before here about how lately, public events seem to come to a screaming halt when someone on stage says, "Let's take some questions from the audience." A pretty large chunk of those in the Saban Theater last night got up and left at that point…and sure enough, we had people who got up and talked about themselves. And we had people who seized the opportunity to perform a little (though I did laugh at the guy who complained that he'd been led to believe the evening would consist of Steve Martin talking about his art collection). And we had people whose "question" was something like "I just want to thank you for all the wonderful work you've done" or who began, "I know I speak for everyone here…" I've complained about these self-indulgences before and I'd like to add a new one to the list. If you're posing a question to someone on a stage, it should not be a question to which the answer is, "Yes, you can order it on Amazon."
Even with the lame questions, Brooks and Cavett managed to be quite amusing in response. The whole evening was wonderful. Kudos to the Writers Bloc and its fine leader, Andrea Grossman. They stage these events in L.A. with great success and you can learn about them and sign up for e-mail announcements at this website. Coming soon is an evening with Steve Martin where he will presumably not just talk about how many paintings he owns.
One last memory of the evening: Afterwards, Cavett signed copies of his book in the lobby and Carolyn and I stood in a very long line to get ours inscribed. He laughed when he heard me tell Andrea, who was sitting next to him, "Some day, you oughta do an event where someone interviews Dick Cavett." But I'm quite sure he didn't mind the hijacking. None of us did. We had a great, great time.