WASHINGTON POST: Dom DeLuise, 75, the rotund comic actor whose frequent television appearances in the 1960s and 1970s helped propel a career in films in which he often teamed with director Mel Brooks and actor Burt Reynolds, died May 4 at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif. He had high blood pressure and diabetes, a family spokesman said. Mr. DeLuise had a broad, slapstick style of physical humor that was derived largely from his idol, Jackie Gleason. He was a master improviser of throwaway lines, gestures and bug-eyed looks of surprise delivered with casually perfect timing. He often played outlandish characters — from the effeminate director Buddy Bizarre in Brooks’s “Blazing Saddles” (1974) to a bloated, belching Emperor Nero in “History of the World: Part I” (1981) — who could trigger laughter just by walking into camera range. He also was the voice of Pizza the Hutt in Brooks’s “Star Wars” parody “Spaceballs” (1987). Mr. DeLuise appeared in four films with Reynolds, including “Smokey and the Bandit II” and the cult favorite “Cannonball Run” movies. In the two “Cannonball Run” films, he played the nerdy Victor Prinzim, who drives an ambulance in a cross-country road race. From time to time in the film, Mr. DeLuise transformed himself into “Captain Chaos,” a deep-voiced, would-be superhero who possessed unearthly driving skills. MORE
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