, the giggly, oversized actor who helped his pal Burt Reynolds liven up the Cannonball Run movies, has died. He was 75.
The self-effacing character actor, comedian and cook appeared in scores of movies and TV shows and voiced characters for cartoon shows. He starred frequently on the big screen alongside Reynolds, including in The End, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Smokey and the Bandit II and The Cannonball Run.
Locally, Mr. DeLuise was known for palling around with Reynolds in Palm Beach County, where he acted, directed and taught classes at Reynolds’ old Jupiter theater. In the 1980s, he kept a condo in Jupiter and visited frequently.
If he was funny, he also could cook. He wrote two cookbooks — Eat This … It’ll Make You Feel Better! and Eat This Too! It’ll Also Make You Feel Better — and often appeared on TV shows demonstrating his favorite recipes. He resembled famed New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme and joked he once impersonated him at Prudhomme’s restaurant.
The problem was that Mr. DeLuise loved to eat as much as he loved to cook. His weight ballooned to well over 300 pounds. The cause of his death late Monday in Santa Monica, Calif., was not released, but he had been suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes, agent Robert Malcolm said.
“Dom always made you feel better when he was around,” Reynolds said in a statement. “I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone.”
Writer-director Mel Brooks also admired Mr. DeLuise’s talent for offbeat comedy and cast him in a number of movies, including Blazing Saddles, Silent Movie, History of the World Part I and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
“Dom DeLuise was a big man in every way,” Brooks said in a statement. “He was big in size and created big laughter and joy. He will be missed in a very big way.”
In Palm Beach County, the lovable, fiery icon of dietary excess left an unforgettable impression on locals he encountered.
“He just loved to talk dirty,” Greg Hauptner, former hairstylist for the Burt Reynolds Theatre, told The Palm Beach Post in 1998. “His favorite thing was to be in a situation like opening night, when everybody’s in tuxedos, and he’d wear these old Italian shirts with the stripes down the middle. He loved to get women who were in furs and diamonds all chuckling by saying the filthiest and dirtiest things.”
In 1983, Mr. DeLuise stayed at The Breakers while working on the script for a movie and scouting filming locations. In his spare time, he regaled the opulent hotel’s guests with impromptu opera and cracked up the reception staff with endless jokes.
“He made me laugh so hard that I couldn’t answer the phone,” a hotel receptionist told the Palm Beach Daily News at the time. “I went into the closet because I was laughing so hard, and I invited him to my Christmas party.”
Mr. DeLuise was born Dominick DeLuise in New York City on Aug. 1, 1933, to Italian immigrants. His father, who spoke only Italian, was a garbage collector, and those humble beginnings stayed with him throughout his life.
“My dad knows everything there is to know about garbage,” David DeLuise once said of the father he followed into show business. “He loves to pick up a broken chair and fix it.”
Mr. DeLuise graduated from the famed School of Performing Arts in Manhattan and attended Tufts University near Boston. He found work at the Cleveland Playhouse, appearing in stage productions that ranged from comedies such as Kiss Me Kate to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
In 1965, he married actress Carol Arthur, who survives him. In addition to David, he is survived by sons Peter and Michael and three grandchildren.
Mr. DeLuise’s toughest acting assignment was his first, he told Ronald L. Smith in 1992 for the book Who’s Who in Comedy. He was handed the role of a penny in that school play.
“The part called for me to roll under a bed as soon as the curtain went up and stay there until I was found in the very last scene,” he said. “It was my hardest role to date. I detested having to be quiet and out of the action for so long.”
The New York Times, The Associated Press and staff writer Jose Lambiet contributed to this story.
andrew_marra@pbpost.com