Maximillian Michael Brooks (born May 22, 1972) is an American actor and author. He is the son of comedy filmmaker Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft. Much of Brooks's writing focuses on zombie stories. He is a senior fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, New York. Early life Brooks was born on May 22, 1972, in Manhattan, New York City. He is the son of actress Anne Bancroft and actor, director, producer, and writer Mel Brooks. His father is Jewish, while his mother was an Italian-American Catholic. Brooks is dyslexic and recalled that during the time in which he was growing up: Brooks attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California. He studied at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history. He also attended graduate school, studying film at American University in Washington, D.C. Career Writing From 2001 to 2003, Brooks was a member of the writing team at Saturday Night Live. In 2003, Brooks wrote his first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, a satirical survival manual about zombies. In 2006, Brooks wrote the follow-up World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, a novel on the same subject, set in the ten years following a zombie apocalypse. Paramount Pictures acquired the movie rights, and Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment, produced the film. In the October 2006 issue of Fangoria Magazine, Brooks stated that he would not be writing the screenplay for the motion picture, as he felt he was not an accomplished enough screenwriter to "do it right" (J. Michael Straczynski wrote the first version of the screenplay). Brooks wrote the introduction for the hardcover collected edition of Dynamite Entertainment's zombie miniseries Raise the Dead, released in 2007. In 2010, Brooks wrote the IDW comic book mini-series G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds. In 2012, he published Closure, Limited and Other Zombie Tales, featuring the story of that name from The New Dead, along with three other short stories set in the World War Z universe. In 2014, Broadway Books published The Harlem Hellfighters, a graphic novel which portrays a fictionalized account of the African American 369th Infantry Regiment's experiences in World War I, written by Brooks and illustrated by Caanan White. Sony Pictures has purchased the rights to create a film of the novel, with Caleeb Pinkett and James Lassiter producing on behalf of Overbrook Entertainment. He