Dom DeLuise(1933-2009)
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
As might be said for the late and great comedians
Harvey Korman and
Madeline Kahn, it seems that
Mel Brooks was the only director on
the planet who knew how to best utilize this funnyman's talents on
film. Brooks once remarked that, whenever he cast Dom in one
of his films he'd add an extra two days to the shooting schedule because of delays between takes due to the constant laughter from cast and crew at Dom's improvisations.
The lovable, butterball comedian was a mainstay on 1960s and '70s TV
variety as a "second banana," or comic-relief player. While his harsher
critics believed his schtick would be better served in smaller doses, Dom
nevertheless went on to find some range in a few moving, more
restrained projects. Those few glimpses behind all the mirth and
merriment revealed a dramatic actor waiting to be unleashed. As they
say, behind every clown's smile, one finds tears.
He was born Dominick DeLuise on August 1, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York,
to parents John, a sanitation engineer, and Vicenza (DeStefano)
DeLuise, both Italian immigrants. A natural school-class clown, his irrepressible sense of humor helped Dom
fit in at school, and he started drawing belly laughs fairly young in his very first school play that had him portraying an inert copper penny! He later attended New York's High School of Performing Arts, but
when it came to college, he decided to major in biology at Tufts
University, outside Boston. That decision failed to expunge the idea of being a comedian from his head and heart, however, and that determination finally prevailed.
Dom's formative years as an actor were spent apprenticing at the
Cleveland Playhouse, where which he gamely played roles in everything from
contemporary shows like "Guys and Dolls" and "Stalag 17" to classics like "The School for Scandal" and
even "Hamlet." He earned his first professional paycheck playing the titular Bernie the
dog in "Bernie's Last Wish." Dom also got a taste
of what it was like in front of the camera in Cleveland, appearing on the local TV kiddie's show "Tip
Top Clubhouse."
Back in NYC, he took over the lead role of Tinker the toymaker in
another children's local program,
Tinker's Workshop (1954),
for one season in 1958. He also started making noise on the
off-Broadway scene. Appearing in the plays "The Jackass" and "All in
Love," he became part of the featured ensemble of the 1961 musical
revue "An Evening with Harry Stoones," which included 19-year-old
Barbra Streisand. More outlandish
musical roles came his way in the early 1960s with "Little Mary
Sunshine" (as Corporal Billy Jester) and "The Student Gypsy, or the
Prince of Liederkrantz" (his Broadway debut as Muffin T. Raggamuffin).
While appearing in the lighthearted summer stock spoof "Summer &
Smirk" in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Dom met fellow performer
Carol Arthur (née Carol Arata). They
married on November 23, 1965. Their three sons,
Peter DeLuise,
Michael DeLuise and
David DeLuise all eventually found their way into show
business. In 1971, Dom returned successfully to Broadway in a
perfectly-suited Neil Simon vehicle,
"The Last of the Red Hot Lovers."
Dom was first noticed on the smaller screen, creating the sketch
character of Dominick the Great, a magician who tries in vain to mask
his inept prestidigitations with feigned dignity on
Garry Moore's popular show. The comedian truly thrived in this TV variety atmosphere and soon
began popping up seemingly everywhere:
(The Hollywood Palace (1964),
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967),
The Jackie Gleason Show (1966)).
Balding, blushing, dimpled and moon-faced (comparisons to a ripe tomato
were not wide of the mark), he was readily equipped with a high-wattage,
Cheshire Cat smile that became his trademark. At his best, looking
embarrassed or agitated, the laughs usually came at his own expense,
whether playing a panic-stricken klutz or squirming nervous-Nelly type.
Dom took his magician character to the ensemble comedy show
The Entertainers (1964),
which also showcased Carol Burnett and
Bob Newhart, and found more regular
employment as a bumbling private eye in puppeteer
Shari Lewis' daytime children's
program, and as a foil for
Dean Martin on the entertainer's
regular and summer replacement shows. Dom again repeated his Dominick
the Great character on Martin's show and received great reception. He
later found himself part of Martin's "in-crowd" of comedians on his
"celebrity roasts."
Dom's obvious comic genius was more readily evident, and succeeded better, in
tandem with other performers than it was on its own. Hosting duties for his very
first comedy/variety program
The Dom DeLuise Show (1968),
which featured wife Carol as part of the regular roster, lasted only
one summer. The sitcom
Lotsa Luck! (1973), which showcased
Dom as bachelor Stanley Belmont having to contend with a live-in mother
(a harping Kathleen Freeman)
and sister (an ungainly
Beverly Sanders), was canceled after its
first season. He gave it a rest for awhile before trying once again
with the sketch-like sitcom
The Dom DeLuise Show (1987),
but it, too, quickly faded. Another brief stint was as host of a
revamped Candid Camera (1991).
While Dom made an unlikely film debut as a high-strung Air Force technician in the
gripping nuclear drama Fail Safe (1964)
starring Henry Fonda, it was in zany,
irreverent comedy that he found his true calling. Appearing in support
of others such as Sid Caesar and
Mary Tyler Moore, respectively, in the
so-so comedies The Busy Body (1967)
and
What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968),
he proved a delight as an inept, dim-witted spy in the
Doris Day caper
The Glass Bottom Boat (1966).
Mel Brooks first cast Dom as the
miserly Russian Orthodox priest, Father Fyodor, in his film
The Twelve Chairs (1970), and
found plenty of room for the comedian after that -- as campy director
Buddy Bizarre in
Blazing Saddles (1974), the
silly-ass director's assistant in
Silent Movie (1976), Emperor Nero in
History of the World: Part I (1981),
the voice of the cheese-oozing Pizza the Hutt in the "Star Wars" parody
Spaceballs (1987), and as Sherwood
Forest's very own puffy-cheeked Godfather, Don Giovanni, in
Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993).
A very close friend of action star
Burt Reynolds, Dom romped through
a number of Reynolds' freewheeling films as well, including
Smokey and the Bandit II (1980),
The Cannonball Run (1981) and
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).
One of his finest scene-stealing film roles, in fact, was as Reynolds'
schizo pal in The End (1978). Dom
went on to direct a number of stage productions for his close friend at
the Burt Reynolds Theatre in Jupiter, Florida -- among them
"Butterflies Are Free," "Same Time, Next Year" (starring Burt and
Carol Burnett), "Brighton Beach Memoirs"
(starring son Peter), and the musical "Jump" (featuring wife Carol).
Still another comic buddy, Gene Wilder,
handed Dom the roles of the indulgent opera star in
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975)
and harassed movie mogul Adolf Zitz in
The World's Greatest Lover (1977).
Dom later joined Wilder once again, along with Wilder's wife
Gilda Radner, in the leaden comedy
Haunted Honeymoon (1986), a clumsy haunted-house spoof that even Dom, in full drag, could not salvage.
Change-of-pace roles were few and far between. One that did come Dom's way was
the compulsive-eating protagonist in
Fatso (1980). Directed by and co-starring
Brooks' wife Anne Bancroft, Dom
managed to mix comedy with pathos. Obesity was also a chronic,
real-life problem for the comedian and, at one point in 1999, it was
reported that he had tipped the scales at 325 lbs. On a positive note,
this passion for food actually fed into a more lucrative sideline -- as
a respected chef and culinary author ("Eat This" and "Eat This Too") in
which he appeared all over the tube cooking and demonstrating his
favorite recipes. He also found time to write children's books on the side.
Dom tackled broad comedy films with great abandon -- a wallflower he
was not -- but they were hit-or-miss. Some of his biggest misses
were the Mae West disaster
Sextette (1977), the
Dudley Moore showcase
Wholly Moses! (1980) (although Dom
was arguably the best thing in it),
Loose Cannons (1990), in which he
appeared as portly pornographer Harry "The Hippo" Gutterman,
Driving Me Crazy (1991),
which filmed far away in Germany, and
The Silence of the Hams (1994), a parody on the horror genre in which he
played Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza.
Films could also be a family affair. True to life, Dom played a
sympathetic kiddie show host in the moving TV-movie
Happy (1983). Also the executive
producer, he was joined by wife Carol and all three sons in the cast.
In addition, Dom offered a cameo in
Between the Sheets (2003), a
film written by Peter, directed, edited and
executive-produced by Michael, and featuring roles for the rest of the
family.
Dom's voiceover skills did not go untapped, either, in films including
the animated features
The Secret of NIMH (1982),
An American Tail (1986) and
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989),
plus all of their offshoots. The heavily-bearded DeLuise even displayed
scene-stealing antics on the operatic scene, once playing the speaking
part of Frosch the Jailer in Johann Srauss II's operetta "Die ," at the
Metropolitan Opera.
Suffering from various physical ailments in later years, some of which
were exacerbated by his chronic obesity and diabetes, Dom's health
declined, and he died in 2009 at age 75. His wife and three children
survive him, as do three grandchildren.
Harvey Korman and
Madeline Kahn, it seems that
Mel Brooks was the only director on
the planet who knew how to best utilize this funnyman's talents on
film. Brooks once remarked that, whenever he cast Dom in one
of his films he'd add an extra two days to the shooting schedule because of delays between takes due to the constant laughter from cast and crew at Dom's improvisations.
The lovable, butterball comedian was a mainstay on 1960s and '70s TV
variety as a "second banana," or comic-relief player. While his harsher
critics believed his schtick would be better served in smaller doses, Dom
nevertheless went on to find some range in a few moving, more
restrained projects. Those few glimpses behind all the mirth and
merriment revealed a dramatic actor waiting to be unleashed. As they
say, behind every clown's smile, one finds tears.
He was born Dominick DeLuise on August 1, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York,
to parents John, a sanitation engineer, and Vicenza (DeStefano)
DeLuise, both Italian immigrants. A natural school-class clown, his irrepressible sense of humor helped Dom
fit in at school, and he started drawing belly laughs fairly young in his very first school play that had him portraying an inert copper penny! He later attended New York's High School of Performing Arts, but
when it came to college, he decided to major in biology at Tufts
University, outside Boston. That decision failed to expunge the idea of being a comedian from his head and heart, however, and that determination finally prevailed.
Dom's formative years as an actor were spent apprenticing at the
Cleveland Playhouse, where which he gamely played roles in everything from
contemporary shows like "Guys and Dolls" and "Stalag 17" to classics like "The School for Scandal" and
even "Hamlet." He earned his first professional paycheck playing the titular Bernie the
dog in "Bernie's Last Wish." Dom also got a taste
of what it was like in front of the camera in Cleveland, appearing on the local TV kiddie's show "Tip
Top Clubhouse."
Back in NYC, he took over the lead role of Tinker the toymaker in
another children's local program,
Tinker's Workshop (1954),
for one season in 1958. He also started making noise on the
off-Broadway scene. Appearing in the plays "The Jackass" and "All in
Love," he became part of the featured ensemble of the 1961 musical
revue "An Evening with Harry Stoones," which included 19-year-old
Barbra Streisand. More outlandish
musical roles came his way in the early 1960s with "Little Mary
Sunshine" (as Corporal Billy Jester) and "The Student Gypsy, or the
Prince of Liederkrantz" (his Broadway debut as Muffin T. Raggamuffin).
While appearing in the lighthearted summer stock spoof "Summer &
Smirk" in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Dom met fellow performer
Carol Arthur (née Carol Arata). They
married on November 23, 1965. Their three sons,
Peter DeLuise,
Michael DeLuise and
David DeLuise all eventually found their way into show
business. In 1971, Dom returned successfully to Broadway in a
perfectly-suited Neil Simon vehicle,
"The Last of the Red Hot Lovers."
Dom was first noticed on the smaller screen, creating the sketch
character of Dominick the Great, a magician who tries in vain to mask
his inept prestidigitations with feigned dignity on
Garry Moore's popular show. The comedian truly thrived in this TV variety atmosphere and soon
began popping up seemingly everywhere:
(The Hollywood Palace (1964),
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967),
The Jackie Gleason Show (1966)).
Balding, blushing, dimpled and moon-faced (comparisons to a ripe tomato
were not wide of the mark), he was readily equipped with a high-wattage,
Cheshire Cat smile that became his trademark. At his best, looking
embarrassed or agitated, the laughs usually came at his own expense,
whether playing a panic-stricken klutz or squirming nervous-Nelly type.
Dom took his magician character to the ensemble comedy show
The Entertainers (1964),
which also showcased Carol Burnett and
Bob Newhart, and found more regular
employment as a bumbling private eye in puppeteer
Shari Lewis' daytime children's
program, and as a foil for
Dean Martin on the entertainer's
regular and summer replacement shows. Dom again repeated his Dominick
the Great character on Martin's show and received great reception. He
later found himself part of Martin's "in-crowd" of comedians on his
"celebrity roasts."
Dom's obvious comic genius was more readily evident, and succeeded better, in
tandem with other performers than it was on its own. Hosting duties for his very
first comedy/variety program
The Dom DeLuise Show (1968),
which featured wife Carol as part of the regular roster, lasted only
one summer. The sitcom
Lotsa Luck! (1973), which showcased
Dom as bachelor Stanley Belmont having to contend with a live-in mother
(a harping Kathleen Freeman)
and sister (an ungainly
Beverly Sanders), was canceled after its
first season. He gave it a rest for awhile before trying once again
with the sketch-like sitcom
The Dom DeLuise Show (1987),
but it, too, quickly faded. Another brief stint was as host of a
revamped Candid Camera (1991).
While Dom made an unlikely film debut as a high-strung Air Force technician in the
gripping nuclear drama Fail Safe (1964)
starring Henry Fonda, it was in zany,
irreverent comedy that he found his true calling. Appearing in support
of others such as Sid Caesar and
Mary Tyler Moore, respectively, in the
so-so comedies The Busy Body (1967)
and
What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968),
he proved a delight as an inept, dim-witted spy in the
Doris Day caper
The Glass Bottom Boat (1966).
Mel Brooks first cast Dom as the
miserly Russian Orthodox priest, Father Fyodor, in his film
The Twelve Chairs (1970), and
found plenty of room for the comedian after that -- as campy director
Buddy Bizarre in
Blazing Saddles (1974), the
silly-ass director's assistant in
Silent Movie (1976), Emperor Nero in
History of the World: Part I (1981),
the voice of the cheese-oozing Pizza the Hutt in the "Star Wars" parody
Spaceballs (1987), and as Sherwood
Forest's very own puffy-cheeked Godfather, Don Giovanni, in
Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993).
A very close friend of action star
Burt Reynolds, Dom romped through
a number of Reynolds' freewheeling films as well, including
Smokey and the Bandit II (1980),
The Cannonball Run (1981) and
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).
One of his finest scene-stealing film roles, in fact, was as Reynolds'
schizo pal in The End (1978). Dom
went on to direct a number of stage productions for his close friend at
the Burt Reynolds Theatre in Jupiter, Florida -- among them
"Butterflies Are Free," "Same Time, Next Year" (starring Burt and
Carol Burnett), "Brighton Beach Memoirs"
(starring son Peter), and the musical "Jump" (featuring wife Carol).
Still another comic buddy, Gene Wilder,
handed Dom the roles of the indulgent opera star in
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975)
and harassed movie mogul Adolf Zitz in
The World's Greatest Lover (1977).
Dom later joined Wilder once again, along with Wilder's wife
Gilda Radner, in the leaden comedy
Haunted Honeymoon (1986), a clumsy haunted-house spoof that even Dom, in full drag, could not salvage.
Change-of-pace roles were few and far between. One that did come Dom's way was
the compulsive-eating protagonist in
Fatso (1980). Directed by and co-starring
Brooks' wife Anne Bancroft, Dom
managed to mix comedy with pathos. Obesity was also a chronic,
real-life problem for the comedian and, at one point in 1999, it was
reported that he had tipped the scales at 325 lbs. On a positive note,
this passion for food actually fed into a more lucrative sideline -- as
a respected chef and culinary author ("Eat This" and "Eat This Too") in
which he appeared all over the tube cooking and demonstrating his
favorite recipes. He also found time to write children's books on the side.
Dom tackled broad comedy films with great abandon -- a wallflower he
was not -- but they were hit-or-miss. Some of his biggest misses
were the Mae West disaster
Sextette (1977), the
Dudley Moore showcase
Wholly Moses! (1980) (although Dom
was arguably the best thing in it),
Loose Cannons (1990), in which he
appeared as portly pornographer Harry "The Hippo" Gutterman,
Driving Me Crazy (1991),
which filmed far away in Germany, and
The Silence of the Hams (1994), a parody on the horror genre in which he
played Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza.
Films could also be a family affair. True to life, Dom played a
sympathetic kiddie show host in the moving TV-movie
Happy (1983). Also the executive
producer, he was joined by wife Carol and all three sons in the cast.
In addition, Dom offered a cameo in
Between the Sheets (2003), a
film written by Peter, directed, edited and
executive-produced by Michael, and featuring roles for the rest of the
family.
Dom's voiceover skills did not go untapped, either, in films including
the animated features
The Secret of NIMH (1982),
An American Tail (1986) and
All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989),
plus all of their offshoots. The heavily-bearded DeLuise even displayed
scene-stealing antics on the operatic scene, once playing the speaking
part of Frosch the Jailer in Johann Srauss II's operetta "Die ," at the
Metropolitan Opera.
Suffering from various physical ailments in later years, some of which
were exacerbated by his chronic obesity and diabetes, Dom's health
declined, and he died in 2009 at age 75. His wife and three children
survive him, as do three grandchildren.