Brooks tells Reiner that after his father’s death, he wanted to “cheat God”

The sharpest insights about Brooks the man arrive in the sections about his parents, radio comic Harry Einstein, aka Harry Parke (who did Greek dialect comedy, as the immigrant character Parkyakarkus) and onetime musical comedy performer Thelma Reed (whom Einstein met on the set of a movie). Brooks’ father was chronically ill and died onstage, literally, not figuratively, at a Friars’ Club tribute in 1958 after performing a routine his son helped write.

Brooks tells Reiner that after his father’s death, he wanted to “cheat God” by using comedy to keep a barrier between himself and both his audience and the people in his life (something he didn’t realize he was doing until the mid-70s when his career as a standup comic and recording artist was stagnating). The work got progressively more emotion-driven after that, peaking with the hopeful “Defending Your Life,” the first Brooks film that made audiences cry at the end (and not because the characters were doomed).