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<i> Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation's press</i>
Said Mel Brooks, star and director of such film comedies as “Blazing Saddles,” “High Anxiety” and “Spaceballs”: “I don’t mind being the Jerry Lewis clown; in fact, I rather enjoy it. But there are times when I would like to do things of a deeper, more philosophical nature.” Still, he told the London newspaper, the Guardian, he is limited by his funny-man image. Most people in Hollywood, he said, are unaware that “Mel Brooks was probably the only 9-year-old Jew in Brooklyn who was reading Dostoevsky.”