Still blazing after all these years: Mel Brooks at 100

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The director of The Producers hits his century as a uniquely beloved entertainer who embodies his conviction that ‘comedy is the opposite of death’ Mel Brooks’ story is that of the US and Jews and American Jewish comedy. He was born on the kitchen table of a tenement in Brooklyn a century ago in the same month Marilyn Monroe made her own entrance on the opposite coast. The son of European immigrants, Brooks was brought up by his mother after his father died when Melvin was just two years old. He was a small, sickly child and the youngest of four brothers, perhaps an explanation for an almost pathological desire for attention. In the words of his colleague Larry Gelbart : “Mel thought when he got slapped in the ass by the doctor who delivered him that was applause, and he has not stopped performing since.” In his youth, Brooks’ preferred method of making a noise was playing the drums and he was actually taught the instrument by Buddy Rich. Neither could possibly have known at the time t...
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Àma Gloria review – amazing performances in sensitive drama about a kid and her nanny

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Six year old Louise Mauroy-Panzani is wonderful as Cléo, strongly bonded to her carer Gloria, who has to leave her

By rights Louise Mauroy-Panzani should be at the front of the queue for every acting award going for her role in this gorgeous French drama. Just six years old at the time of filming (the casting director spotted her in Paris arguing with her brother in the street), she gives a performance so open and natural, it has an almost transparent quality. You feel what her character Cléo feels as her world is turned upside down over one summer. Equally brilliant is another first-time actor, Ilça Moreno Zego, a real-life nanny playing Gloria, who has taken care of Cléo since she was tiny and is now moving back to Cape Verde.

The opening scenes showing us Cléo’s life with Gloria are beautifully detailed. Cléo’s mum died when she was a baby, and she lives with her dad (Arnaud Rebotini), who is gentle but remote, still reeling from grief. It’s Gloria who is the sun in Cleo’s life. Running out of school her little face, poking out from under a tangled mop of curls, lights up at the sight of her nanny. Then, one day, Gloria gets a call. Her mother in Cape Verde has died; she is going home to look after her own children.

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