The skilled and affable character actor Dom DeLuise, familiar to most for his frequent appearances in Mel Brooks films and Burt Reynolds vehicles, has died at the age 75. He also had a passion for cooking, and wrote a pair of books: Eat This… It’ll Make You Feel Better: Mama’s Italian Home Cooking And Other Favorites Of Family And Friends and a follow-up called Eat This Too!. Though DeLuise showed some talent early in his career for dramatic actor—and later in 1980’s bizarre, seriocomic Fatso—he will be remembered for his larger-than-life turns in comedies. With Brooks, he appeared in Blazing Saddles, The Twelve Chairs, Silent Movie, History Of The World Part I, Spaceballs, and Robin Hood: Men In Tights. With Reynolds, both Cannonball Run movies, Smokey And The Bandit II, The End, The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, and the animated film All Dogs Go To Heaven. DeLuise also hosted Candid Camera briefly and was the Hollywood agent who discovers Kermit The Frog singing “The Rainbow Connection” in The Muppet Movie.
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