Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,661

This is the grave of Dom DeLuise.

Born in 1933 in New York City, Dominick DeLuise grew up in an Italian-American household, which you all already knew, I mean his name is Dom DeLuise. He was a deeply observant Catholic his whole life. He was a real smart kid, did great in school, and went to Tufts as a biology major.

But we all know biology wasn’t really DeLuise’s calling. He started working little shows and then in 1952 went to Cleveland to act in the Cleveland Play House. He spent the next decade as a struggling actor, slowing rising in theatre. In 1961, he worked an off-Broadway play with a young actress named Barbra Streisand. It didn’t succeed for either of them. DeLuise’s bigger break came the next year, when he was cast in the play All is Love, which ran for 141 performances. He started getting bigger parts in New York theatre productions. Usually these were comedies, though not exclusively. He also got a small early role in Fail Safe, where he played a nervous airline passenger, the rare serious role in DeLuise’s long career.

In the 1960s, DeLuise started appearing on TV with a bit called “Dominick the Great” that was about an idiotic magician. But really, the first time DeLuise got serious attention was in the terrible 1966 Doris Day vehicle The Glass Bottom Boat, which supposedly sucks but for which reviewers realized DeLuise was a big talent. Seen as a funny guy and someone associated with the Rat Pack, at the edges, he had some opportunities develop out of this. For instance, in 1968, he had his own variety show on CBS. It was as much a showcase for his buddy Jackie Gleason’s troupe as himself, but it still served as a showcase for this very funny man. He also was a regular on The Dean Martin Show, originally hired for a one-off skit that went over great and so he was brought back again and again.

The 1970s became his true heyday. He ran with Burt Reynolds and so Burt would ensure a part for his funny buddy. This included both the Cannonball Run films, the second of the Smokey and the Bandit films, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Reynolds directed a few films in his own heyday as well, which I don’t think I even mentioned in that grave post since they are generally so forgettable, but when he directed the 1978 film The End, DeLuise was the sidekick. There’s of course his role in Blazing Saddles, which was not huge, but was memorable. Mel Brooks directed him in Silent Movie as well. Gene Wilder included him in the cast of his 1975 film The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother and then his 1977 film The World’s Greatest Lover. Neil Simon included him in his 1978 film The Cheap Detective.

DeLuise even got behind the camera for his own film, 1979’s Hot Stuff, which has one of those insane casts for a basically second-rate but kinda fun movie that this era had in spades. There was DeLuise, Suzanne Pleshette, Jerry Reed, and Ossie Davis. Sure, OK. The film was reviewed as OK, with Roger Ebert basically noting that DeLuise is a funny guy, but he’s better in smaller doses than as the center of a film. That makes sense to me.

But really, DeLuise continued to work not only consistently but in largely pretty fun movies well into the 80s. I don’t think any of us are going to forget his role as Bernie the Agent in The Muppet Movie, which is really more a cameo, but the point is that if you are going to make a quirky oddball comedy that summed up the era, of course you wanted DeLuise in it in some role. That same year, Ann Bancroft directed her only film, Fatso, and it goes without saying that DeLuise is Fatso. Plus he’s Emperor Nero in History of the World, Part I, which is an inconsistent film to say the least, but that’s just awesome casting right there by Brooks. He also was the voice of Pizza the Hut in Spaceballs, which really is a terrible film, but who cares. He was also Don Giovanni in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Later in his career, DeLuise found a lot of work as a voice actor in high end animation. Makes sense, as his voice and act were perfect for this kind of thing. He voiced characters in The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, A Troll in Central Park, and All Dogs Go to Heaven. DeLuise also got some opera work. He had repeated appearances in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, done by the Metropolitan Opera. It’s a comedic opera, so he was perfect for a part. I was curious about the language for this, turns out in this production the singing was in German (which I guess he could pull off) but the spoken words are translated into English. This was all good because his film appearances by the mid-80s and after were generally horrible. Like, the worst films. The Silence of the Hams, from 1994, in which he played Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza may not have been the peak of American entertainment, that’s all I’m saying here.

DeLuise was also something of a renaissance man. He loved cooking and authored several cookbooks. Whatever help he probably had in doing this, no one questioned that was personally an excellent cook. The fact that he looked just like Paul Prudhomme added some extra comedy to all of this, which he would absolutely play up in television appearances about cooking. It also didn’t hurt that he and Prudhomme became friends. DeLuise also wrote a bunch of children’s books, including titles such as Charlie the Caterpillar and The Pouch Potato.

DeLuise’s last few years weren’t great, as they aren’t for many of us. He suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes as he aged and he was pretty big and didn’t take that great of care. Then came cancer and finally he died in 2009 of kidney failure. He was 75 years old.

Dom DeLuise is buried in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York. It’s a super restful place for contemplation about a great life, being directly under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, which you can see in the picture.

If you would like this series to visit other people in History of the World Part 1, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Gregory Hines is in Oakville, Ontario and Harvey Korman is in Santa Monica, California. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.