Brooks changed his name from Einstein to Brooks explaining that "the real Albert Einstein changed his name to sound more intelligent!"
In the early 1970s, Brooks worked as stand-up comic and moonlighted as a chauffeur for John Lennon and Paul McCartney when they were in Los Angeles. "I was actually friends with Harry Nilsson and through him I got this job of driving the Beatles when they were drunk."
Brooks's recalls that he "... also used to drive Harry and John Lennon all the time. I was doing stand-up at the Troubadour and Harry called me and said, 'I'm gonna bring John Lennon tonight.' I wound up having the worst show - the only two hecklers I ever had were John and Harry that night."
Brooks earned a Grammy nomination for his second comedy album, A Star Is Bought, which was released in 1975. Harry Nilsson makes a brief appearance on the album in a track called "Party From Outer Space."
A 1975 Time Magazine article about Albert Brooks illustrated Brooks's odd sense of humor: "Singer Harry Nilsson recalls sleeping off a drunk one night on the floor at Brooks’s small house in the Hollywood hills. His host appeared before him dressed in a clown suit and whispered his name like a beckoning ghost."
Also in 1975, Lorne Michaels hired Albert Brooks to make a series of short films to air during the first season of Saturday Night Live. A Newsweek article published shortly after the show's debut raved about a short film by Brooks called "Super Season." Brooks says, "I made up three shows that were coming to NBC and Newsweek said it was a great little film. But the review credited the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. God bless him, but Lorne [Michaels] never corrected them. My friend Harry Nilsson was the only one who wrote Newsweek and said 'Albert Brooks made that movie.'"
Brook's acting career began with an appearance in an episode of "Love, American Style" which was directed by Garry Marshall. He also appeared in a few episodes of Marshall's "The Odd Couple".
In 1979, Brooks co-wrote and directed Real Life in which he plays himself in a parody of PBS's documentary "An American Family". In one scene in Real Life, Harry Nilsson's "Jump Into the Fire" is heard playing on a radio.
Books has appeared in many other films and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award in 1987 for Broadcast News.