Mel Brooks describes the most embarrassing moment of his life

Ray Richmond
·2 min read
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When writing a 97th birthday salute to the great Mel Brooks on Wednesday, I neglected to include my favorite story surrounding Brooks. It involved his most embarrassing moment, which happened in 1966. He recalled the cringeworthy moment in a special with talk show host Dick Cavett in 2011, and it involved the affable game show host Bill Cullen.

“About a hundred years ago, I was on a show called, ‘Eye Guess’,” Brooks recalled, “with a lady named Julia Meade and the host, Bill Cullen. I was doing my usual thing, ad-libbing, having a good time. So, the show is over, and I turned and noticed that Cullen is starting to walk out from behind his podium.”

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Interrupting the story here, Cullen walked in an exaggerated and jerky fashion as a result of  a childhood bout with polio that left him disabled with significant physical limitations for the rest of his life. I once interviewed Cullen at his home in Bel Air and was surprised to see his disability, since as a game show host he was always positioned behind either a podium or a desk and there was no evidence of his movement.

OK, back to Mel.

“I see that Bill is doing this jerky, hobbling, exaggerated walk,” he says, “and I figured, ‘He’s doing Jerry Lewis!’ So I start walking toward him doing the same walk, on my heels, limping and flailing around. And suddenly Julia starts screaming, ‘Mel! Bill has polio! He has polio! He’s crippled! Don’t!’ But it’s too late. I’m just reaching center stage, where I meet Bill, and he’s seen the whole thing. When we finally meet, we hug, and I see he’s crying. He looks at me and says, ‘Thank you. I’ve never met a person who has the guts to mimic my walk and make fun of me.’ And I’m just, like, ‘Well, I did it for you, Bill.’ I mean, what else am I going to say? I wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear.”

Whenever the subject comes up, Brooks describes it as the most mortifying moment he’s ever had. But it speaks volumes about Cullen’s grace that he immediately worked to defuse the discomfort and took it in good humor. When discussing the incident, Cullen evidently saw it as a giant positive, grateful because up until then, he felt people were too pitying of him. There was no word of what Jerry Lewis felt about the whole thing.

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