re: You are alive at the same time Mel Brooks is alive respect thread.

Apparently, he cast and signed an unknown NYC stage actor to play Franz Liebkind in The Producers. It was Dustin Hoffman, a Greenwich Village neighbor. Hoffmann told him he had a chance at the lead in a new Mike Nichols movie, The Graduate, and had to go to L.A. for a screen test. Neither Brooks nor Hoffman thought he’d get the part and figured he’d be back from L.A. to start his role as the crazed Nazi author of “Springtime for Hitler”. He got the part. Brooks recast Kenneth Mars, even though he had Hoffman under contract. Worked out good for Mars. Worked out great for Hoffman.