Comic actor Dom DeLuise

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Comic actor Dom DeLuise
Dennis McLellan, Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Los Angeles - Dom DeLuise, the mirthful, moon-faced comic actor who was a regular on Dean Martin's television variety show in the 1970s and provided frequent comedic support in movies starring Mel Brooks and Burt Reynolds, has died. He was 75.

Mr. DeLuise died Monday evening at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, said his agent, Robert Malcolm. Mr. DeLuise's wife and three sons were with him when he died. The family did not release the cause of death.

Brooks said his good friend "created so much joy and laughter on the set that you couldn't get your work done. So every time I made a movie with Dom, I would plan another two days on the schedule just for laughter.

"It's a sad day. It's hard to think of this life and this world without him."

Reynolds said in a statement: "As you get older and start to lose people you love, you think about it more, and I was dreading this moment. Dom always made you feel better when he was around, and there will never be another like him."

The Brooklyn-born entertainer, who got his start on stage and in children's television in the 1950s, emerged on TV variety shows in the 1960s.

The same decade, he launched his film career, including early roles in comedies such as "The Glass Bottom Boat." But he was best known for his movie work with Brooks and Reynolds.

Beginning with playing a greedy family priest in Brooks' "The Twelve Chairs" in 1970, Mr. DeLuise went on to appear in Brooks' "Blazing Saddles," "Silent Movie," "History of the World: Part I" and "Robin Hood: Men in Tights." He also played the mozzarella-oozing Pizza the Hutt in Brooks' "Star Wars" parody, "Spaceballs."

With Reynolds, Mr. DeLuise appeared in "Smokey and the Bandit II," "The Cannonball Run," "Cannonball Run II," "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and "The End."

Until the 1970s, Mr. DeLuise was known primarily as a television personality.

While appearing in Meredith Willson's 1963-64 Broadway musical "Here's Love," Mr. DeLuise did a comedy routine as an inept magician, Dominick the Great, on Garry Moore's popular variety show.

That appearance helped pave the way for his becoming a regular on "The Entertainers," a short-lived variety show starring Carol Burnett, Caterina Valente and Bob Newhart that ran on CBS in 1964 and 1965. In 1966, Mr. DeLuise was a regular on "The Dean Martin Summer Show."

Two years later, he hosted "The Dom DeLuise Show," his own comedy-variety summer series on CBS. His wife, Carol Arthur, a Broadway actress whom he married in 1965, was one of the regulars.

In the early '70s, Mr. DeLuise was a staple on "The Dean Martin Show." But he didn't fare as well as the star of his own TV series. "Lotsa Luck," a sitcom in which he played a bachelor New York City bus company's lost-and-found department custodian, ran on NBC in 1973 and 1974.

He also starred in the 1987-88 syndicated sitcom "The Dom DeLuise Show," in which he played a Hollywood barber and widowed single father of a 10-year-old daughter. In 1991, he hosted the short-lived syndicated return of the classic comedy-reality show "Candid Camera."

Over the years, Mr. DeLuise appeared on Broadway a number of times. He even occasionally performed with opera companies, including appearing in the Los Angeles Opera Company's "Orpheus in the Underworld."

The son of Italian immigrants - his father was a city garbage collector, his mother a full-time homemaker - he was born Dominick DeLuise in Brooklyn on Aug. 1, 1933.

The third of three children, Mr. DeLuise developed an interest in acting after playing Scrooge in a junior high school production of "A Christmas Carol" and went on to graduate from the High School of Performing Arts in New York.

He spent summers at the Cleveland Playhouse, where he appeared in productions as varied as "Guys and Dolls" and "Hamlet."

In the early '60s, he was a semiregular on NBC's "The Shari Lewis Show," a Saturday morning children's show in which he played a bumbling private detective.

Mr. DeLuise, whose girth grew greater over the years, was a man who loved to eat. In the late '80s, he wrote a cookbook containing his favorite recipes, "Eat This: It'll Make You Feel Better," which was followed by "Eat This Too!"

Mr. DeLuise also wrote a number of children's books, including "Charlie the Caterpillar" and "The Pouch Potato."

In addition to his wife, Mr. DeLuise is survived by their three sons, Peter, Michael and David; his sister, Anne; and three grandchildren.

This article appeared on page A - 9 of the San Francisco Chronicle