Called the West Coast Woody Allen for his cerebral brand of comedy, actor-writer-director Albert Brooks turned down the Billy Crystal role in "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989) precisely because "it read to me like a Woody Allen movie, verbatim. And I thought that was not something I should be in." Though both are tortured insecure geniuses of Hebraic descent who changed their names and abandoned brilliant stand-up careers to make movies, Brooks is by far the slower worker, helming on average only one movie every 3.5 years (six in 21 years), compared to Allen who cranks out at least one picture per annum. Yet, Brooks wouldn't have it any other way. As an actor, he's rejected countless projects from "Dragnet" (1987) and "Midnight Run" (1988) to "Sgt. Bilko" (1996). After pitching a sitcom ("Our Man in Rattan") to Michael Eisner at ABC in 1976, calling for him to play a lowly TV correspondent in the armpit of Africa, he was just about to sign on the dotted line when Eisner's "Albert, where do you see the character in seven years?" elicited "Suicide. I don't think I'm ready to do this." He also turned down Lorne Michaels' offer to be the sole host of the original "Saturday Night Live" (NBC) in 1975.
Brooks' life has been a comedy act since coming into the world christened Albert Einstein. His father (who couldn't resist the gag of saddling him with the famous scientist's moniker) was Eddie Cantor's zany sidekick Harry Einstein, and growing up around the dinner table, Albert had to compete for laughs with his dad and two older brothers, one of whom (Bob) went on to become daredevil comedian Super Dave Osborne. The funniest kid in his class at Beverly Hills High, where he acted in plays with fellow classmate Richard Dreyfuss, Brooks also had a knack for cracking up adults at the tender age of 16 as director Rob Reiner recalled: "He'd come to our house, and my father [Carl Reiner] would be convulsing from his routines." Soon after leaving college to take his shtick on the road, he made his TV debut in 1968, performing his act on "The Steve Allen Show", and his manic, sardonic wit and satirical stylings quickly made him a regular on NBC's "The Tonight Show". Two acclaimed comedy albums followed, but Brooks found the life of a comic wanting, the constant repetition of material anathema, and eventually walked out on a thriving career in the 70s.
Having already picked up his first TV writing credit for the ABC variety series "Turn On" in 1969, Brooks tried his hand at directing with a segment for PBS' "The Great American Dream Machine" (1971), adapting an essay he wrote for ESQUIRE magazine entitled "Albert Brooks's Famous School for Comedians". Despite turning down the offer to host "SNL", he did write, direct and produce six short films for its first season. After making his feature acting debut as a presidential campaign co-worker of Cybill Shepherd in Martin Scorsese's riveting "Taxi Driver" (1976), Brooks took his first stab at full-length helming with "Real Life" (1978), a satirical take on the PBS series "An American Family", in which he starred as a documentarian who, in his search for the typical American family, alters real events to make them more cinematic. Though his first feature did not sustain its comic premise as well as his hilarious short subjects, it struck a balance between humor and social criticism that remains the hallmark of his work. He followed with "Modern Romance" (1981), an extremely funny look at one neurotic man's (Brooks) attempt to find love in Hollywood, complete with wonderful in-jokes about moviemaking.
Finding strong and funny identification with the urban impulse to chuck the rat race and hit the open road, Brooks' "Lost in America" (1985) brought him many new fans who had missed his first two features. Its meticulous observation of two disillusioned yuppies (Brooks and Julie Hagerty) who liquidate their assets and buy a Winnebago ("We'll be like 'Easy Rider'--with a nest egg") struck a chord with people who secretly longed to act on youthful, irresponsible fantasies to drop out of society. Across the country they go, experiencing one misadventure after another in their ill-fated attempt to "find themselves," and by the time Brooks takes a job as an Arizona school crossing guard and Hagerty is slinging hamburgers, the inevitable and sobering "sellout" is just around the corner. Co-writer Monica Johnson, director of photography Eric Saarinen and editor David Finfer had all worked on the previous features, and the well-oiled unit delivered Brooks' best film to that time. His fourth feature, "Defending Your Life" (1991), picked up where "Lost in America" left off, with Brooks as a self-obsessed, recently deceased executive who, having never accomplished his life goals, must face his past in order to continue in the afterlife. Boasting enjoyably broad performances by Brooks and Rip Torn, the one-joke script did wear thin but was still hard to dislike.
Although Brooks the auteur stars in his own pictures, he does act for other directors. For his writer-director friend James L Brooks (no relation), he played the talented but luckless TV journalist who sweats a lot in "Broadcast News" (1987), earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and raising his public profile a notch higher. He also provided a voice for Brooks' Oscar-winning Best Picture "Terms of Endearment" (1983) and portrayed a strident Hollywood producer of slick action films (a la Joel Silver) in "I'll Do Anything" (1994), most notable for having been filmed as a musical before test audience reactions convinced the director to pull the music. That year also saw Brooks star as "The Scout", an old Andrew Bergman baseball script which he and Johnson "doctored" for director Michael Ritchie. Unfortunately, the major league baseball strike conspired to sink the slim commercial chances of a comedy that never quite recovered from its detour to drama. Brooks also acted in Sidney Lumet's "Critical Care" (1997, as a 65-year-old alcoholic surgeon) and Steven Soderbergh's "Out of Sight" (1998, as a Wall Street guy put in prison), not to mention voicing the suicidal tiger of the live-action "Dr. Dolittle" (also 1997).
It was five years between directing efforts but well worth the wait when Brooks finally delivered "Mother" (1996), co-writing (with Johnson) and starring in the comedy about a twice-divorced man who decides to move back in with Mom (Debbie Reynolds in a well-modulated, non-jokey performance), attempting to understand the root of his problems with women. Brooks considered Nancy Reagan, Doris Day and Esther Williams for the eponymous part before finally choosing Reynolds, who put her Vegas career on hold to play her first significant film role in 25 years. Three years later, he helmed, co-wrote (again with Johnson) and starred as a Hollywood screenwriter struggling for inspiration who meets "The Muse" (Sharon Stone), a romantic comedy that also featured Jeff Bridges and Andie MacDowell plus a slew of celebrity cameos, including Martin Scorsese, Rob Reiner and James Cameron. Brooks once said, "Being a screenwriter in Hollywood is like being a eunuch at an orgy. Worse, actually, at least the eunuch is allowed to watch." By directing his own scripts, he has avoided such powerlessness and guaranteed that his fractured vision reaches the audience in tact.
Stepping outside of his own genre again, Brooks received an abaundance of critical praise for his turn in director Christine Lahti's unassuming indie debut "My First Mister" (2001), playing a finicky clothing store owner who embarks on a relationship with a 17-year-old employee (Leelee Sobieski), and then took on a comedy classic by teaming with Michael Douglas for a remake of the eccentric "The In-Laws" (2003), playing a neurotic and nebbishy dentist opposite Douglas' die-hard CIA agent. The actor--or at least his distinctive voice--was introduced an entirely new generation of fans when he lent his vocal talents to Marlin the Clownfish, the dyspeptic dad searching for his son in Disney/Pixar's CGI-animated underwater comedy-adventure "Finding Nemo" (2003).
Brooks' next film "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" (lensed 2005) poked fun at American attitudes regarding Muslims. Prior to the film's release Brooks claimed Sony backed away from releasing it after concern the title might spur reprisals, but the studio denied the charge.