Kate Kaminsky: How did  Mel Brooks’ mother die?

Kate Kaminsky is the mother of Mel Brooks. Kate Kaminsky’s son is one of the most influential people in Hollywood. The American actor, comedian, and filmmaker is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He is one of 18 entertainers to win the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards. He rose to prominence becoming one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s. His best-known films include The Producers, The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein just to mention a few.

Kate Kaminsky: Bio Summary

Who is Mel Brooks’ mother?

Kate Kaminsky was born on 15 July 1896 in Kyiv, the City of Kyiv, Ukraine. Not much is known about the immediate family of Mel Brooks’s mother. However, his mother’s family were Jews from Kyiv, in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine) according to her son’s Wikipedia.

Kate Kaminsky was married to a German Jew from Danzig Max James Kaminsky. The couple tied the knot in a beautiful wedding ceremony in 1914 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York United States in the presence of their friends, families, and loved ones.

Their marriage was blessed with four boys-  Lenny Kaminsky, Irving Kaminsky, Bernie Kaminsky, and Mel Brooks who was the youngest. Though things were going well for the family at the beginning, they were struck by tragedy when her husband Max James Kaminsky died of tuberculosis of the kidney at 34 when Brooks was two years old.

ALSO, READ; Max James Kaminsky: What happened to Mel Brooks’s father?

The Young Frankenstein star has said that his father’s death took a toll on him, “There’s an outrage there. I may be angry at God, or at the world, for that. And I’m sure a lot of my comedy is based on anger and hostility. Growing up in Williamsburg, I learned to clothe it in comedy to spare myself problems—like a punch in the face.”

Mel Brooks’ mother Kate Kaminsky had an influence on his career

Mel Brooks revealed he grew up in tenement housing. At the very young age of nine, he remembers going to a Broadway show with his mother’s brother Joe—a taxi driver who drove the Broadway doormen back to Brooklyn for free and was given the tickets in gratitude—and saw Anything Goes with William Gaxton, Ethel Merman, and Victor Moore at the Alvin Theater. After the show, he told his uncle that he was not going to work in the garment district like everyone else but was absolutely going into show business.

As a teenager and was performing, Brooks who was born Melvin James Kaminsky changed his name to Melvin Brooks, influenced by his mother’s maiden name Brookman, after being confused with trumpeter Max Kaminsky. He changed the name to maintain originality.

After World War II, Kate Kaminsky had secured a job for her son as a clerk at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, but Brooks “got into a taxi and ordered the driver to take him to the Catskills”, where he started working in various Borscht Belt resorts and nightclubs in the Catskill Mountains as a drummer and pianist. 

ALSO, READ; Eddie Brooks: Where is Mel Brooks’ son now?

What happened to Mel Brooks’ mother?

Kate Kaminsky passed away on 19 August 1989  in Broward County, Florida, USA per Findagrave. She was 93 years old at the time of her passing. The cause of her death was not made known to the public.

Years later, Kate Kaminsky’s son, the Hollywood icon married Florence Baum in 1953. The former lovers welcomed three kids together — Stephanie Brooks, Nicky Brooks, and Eddie Brooks. Sadly, their marriage couldn’t hold for long as it ended in divorce in 1962. Just two years later, Mel found love again with Anne Bancroft. They married in 1964 and had just one child together, Max Brooks, in 1972. Mel Brooks is 97 years old as of 2023.