BROOKS, MEL (KAMINSKY, MELVIN)

(b. 1926)

   American film director, writer and actor. He was born in New York, and first worked as a comedian in the Borscht Belt of New York's Catskill Mountain resorts. Later he was one of a team of comedy writers for The Sid Caesar Show and Your Show of Shows. He also wrote, directed and produced, and acted in a number of films. He is one of those comic writers and performers who see humour as a traditional Jewish response to adversity and a way of effacing anger.