LOS ANGELES — Dom DeLuise, the portly entertainer and chef whose affable nature made him a popular character actor for decades with movie and TV audiences as well as directors and fellow actors, has died. He was 75.
Agent Robert Malcolm said DeLuise died about 6 p.m. Monday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica. Malcolm said the family did not release the cause of death.
A family statement said: “It’s easy to mourn his death but easier to remember a time when he made you laugh.”
DeLuise, who loved to cook and eat almost as much as he enjoyed acting, also carved out a formidable second career later in life as a chef of fine cuisine. He authored two cookbooks and would appear often on morning TV shows to whip up his favorite recipes.
As an actor, he was incredibly prolific, appearing in scores of movies and TV shows, in Broadway plays and voicing characters for numerous cartoon shows.
Writer-director-actor Mel Brooks particularly admired DeLuise’s talent for offbeat comedy and cast him in several films, including “The Twelve Chairs,” “Blazing Saddles,” “Silent Movie,” “History of the World Part I” and “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.” DeLuise was also the voice of Pizza the Hutt in Brooks’ “Star Wars” parody, “Spaceballs.”
The actor also frequently appeared opposite his friend Burt Reynolds in films such as “The End,” “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “Smokey and the Bandit II,” “The Cannonball Run” and “Cannonball Run II.”
Reynolds fondly recalled DeLuise in a statement issued by his publicist.
“Dom always made you feel better when he was around and there will never be another like him. I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. I will miss him very much.”
He 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.
“My dad knows everything there is to know about garbage,” one of the actor’s sons, David DeLuise, said in 2008. “He loves to pick up a broken chair and fix it.”
DeLuise’s introduction to acting came at age 8 when he played the title role of Peter Rabbit in a school play. He went on to graduate from New York City’s famed School of Performing Arts in Manhattan.
While working in summer stock in Provincetown, Mass., he met actress Carol Arthur, and they were soon married. The couple’s three sons, Peter, Michael and David, all became actors and all appeared with their father in the 1990s TV series “SeaQuestDSV.”
Other Deaths
Martha Mason, 71, who spent 61 years in an iron lung yet graduated from college and wrote a book about her life, died Monday at her home in Lattimore, N.C.
Mary Dalton, a professor at Wake Forest University, produced a documentary about Mason’s life in 2006. Dalton said polio left Mason paralyzed from the neck down in 1948, yet she graduated first in her class from Wake Forest in 1960.
She studied English and was well-versed in politics and literature, but it wasn’t until 1994 that voice-recognition software allowed her to write about her life. Her book, “Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung,” was published in 2003.
James W. Davant, 93, who rose from trainee to chief executive at the investment firm Paine Webber and led its transformation from a traditional brokerage partnership into an international full-service company, died April 17 in Delray Beach, Fla.
In 1964, when Davant became managing partner of Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis, it bought and sold securities for private customers, had fewer than 40 branch offices, annual revenue of $30 million and $1 million in capital funds. When he retired as chief executive in 1980, Paine Webber’s 229 branches earned annual revenue of $900 million, and its capital had reached $240 million.
