Frazer Harrison/Getty Images Dom DeLuise has died at age 75.Dom DeLuise, the irrepressibly rotund comedian, has died at the age of 75, his son Michael confirmed to the Web site of the Los Angeles television station KTLA. Mr. DeLuise, the willfully goofy star of numerous comedies like “Blazing Saddles” and “The Muppet Movie,” died Monday after a long illness, Michael DeLuise said.
In the outpouring of affection for Mr. DeLuise that has quickly cropped up on the Web, Ken Tucker, a critic for Entertainment Weekly, aptly describes the performer as “a roly-poly delivery-system for joy,” adding on EW.com:
Whether he was clowning with Dean Martin on TV or making his buddy Burt Reynolds crack up in films like “Cannonball Run,” DeLuise’s effusive happiness was infectious. He radiated funniness through his popping eyes and his rapid-fire way of talking.
In a statement to the Web site of “Entertainment Tonight,” Burt Reynolds, who starred with Mr. DeLuise in two “Cannonball Run” movies and “Smokey and the Bandit II,” said:
I was thinking the other day about this. As you get older you think about this more and more, I was dreading this moment. Dom always made everyone feel better when he was around. I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. I will miss him very much.
Though everyone, deep down, has a favorite DeLuise performance — as the Pope in “Johnny Dangerously,” as an outspoken guest on “The Tonight Show” or “Hollywood Squares” — we’d like to think he did some of his best work in these scenes from the 1980 comedy-drama “Fatso”:
A full obituary will follow on NYTimes.com.
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