Brooks recounts the evening he lost his close friend and collaborator of seven decades in the HBO documentary “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!”

Mel Brooks reveals he was with Rob Reiner’s dad, Carl Reiner, the night he died: ‘I wouldn’t accept it’

Brooks recounts the evening he lost his close friend and collaborator of seven decades in the HBO documentary "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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January 15, 2026 3:41 p.m. ET

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Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner in 2003. Credit:

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- Mel Brooks reveals in the new HBO documentary *Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man! *that he was with his close friend and collaborator Carl Reiner the night of his death in 2020.

- "I just didn't want him to go. I just couldn't — I wouldn't accept it," Brooks shares, recalling Reiner collapsing in the bathroom of his Beverly Hills home. "I loved him so much."

- Rob Reiner, Carl's son, who died in December, says that he "always thought even though Mel was only like four years younger than my dad, I think he looked to my dad as a father figure."**

It has been a terrible few years for the Reiner family. But at least Mel Brooks, patriarch Carl Reiner's close friend and collaborator across seven decades, was with him until the very end.

Brooks recalls the final night he spent with Reiner in the new two-part documentary *Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!*, which premieres on HBO on Jan. 22. The *Blazing Saddles *and *Young Frankenstein *legend spent nearly every night with his "2000 Year Old Man"* *comedy partner after the deaths of Reiner's wife Estelle Reiner in 2008, and Brooks' wife Anne Bancroft in 2005, he explains.

Indeed, "Mel was there when my dad died," Carl's son Rob Reiner confirms in the documentary. Carl died in June 2020 at his home in Beverly Hills. Rob and his wife Michele were found dead inside their California home in December.

"He just collapsed in the bathroom, and Mel came back and realized, 'Uh oh, something's wrong,' Rob recalls in an interview taped before his death, explaining that his father "died right after that."

Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks in 1964.

ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

"I was still hoping that they would put the stuff on him and boom, get him up," Brooks explains, recalling EMTs arriving on the scene after a 911 call. "I kept yelling at them, 'Keep it up, keep it up,' and they thought I was crazy after an hour of yelling."

Brooks mournfully shares, "I just didn't want him to go. I just couldn't — I wouldn't accept it. I loved him so much."**

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

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Mel Brooks pays tribute to longtime friend and collaborator Carl Reiner: 'I loved him'

The elder Reiner met Brooks in 1950 on the set of the NBC variety series *Your Show of Shows*, as he recalled in a 2012 interview with Jerry Seinfeld.

The pair went on to work together as writers on the show, where they developed their beloved "2000 Year Old Man" sketch, which they'd base a number of comedy albums around for the following decades. The duo won a Grammy in 1998 for the spoken word comedy album*The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000.***

"After my father died, he would come to the house, sit there, watch television and have dinner, and he did that for months," Rob Reiner recalls in the documentary. "He was that close to my dad, where he kept, he wanted to be close to him even when my dad was gone... I always thought even though Mel was only like four years younger than my dad, I think he looked to my dad as a father figure."

Rob Reiner and Mel Brooks in 2014.

Chelsea Lauren/WireImage

In an interview taped before his death, Carl himself lavishes the praise back on Brooks, who is 99.

"Whatever he decides to do, when he decides to do it, it was going to work," Carl shares. "He hates the word genius... and I use the word genius not lightly. I understand the word. Genius has to not only produce something really good, but a volume of it. And Mel, look at the volume he has produced. And if somebody wants to argue, they can, but they won't win."**

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