Dom DeLuise Audiovisual Collection

Collection

Identifier: ACC-MSS 012

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Dom DeLuise collection contains materials from the years 1964-2008. The collection includes scripts, screenplays, photographs, videocassettes, ¾ inch Umatic recordings, Umatic S recordings, CDs, DVDs, books, press releases, newspaper and magazine articles. The scripts are rough drafts of skits performed on The Entertainers and The Dom DeLuise Show and the screenplays are various drafts that represent films such as Happy and Marco’s Moon. Many of the CDs and DVDs are from the Dom DeLuise memorial or are in relation to his cooking career. The video recordings capture various television appearances, interviews, and dubbed films and movies. The photographs in this collection contain press release photos pertaining to each of the films that DeLuise made an appearance in, family photographs, photographs relating to theatre productions as well as miscellaneous photographs.

Dates

1964-2009

Creator

DeLuise, Dom (Person)

Language of Materials

Records in English.

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open to researchers.

Conditions Governing Use

The status of copyright in this collection is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.). Researchers requesting permission to duplicate and/or use materials for purposes other than research must obtain copyright permission from the copyright holder.

Biographical / Historical

Dominick DeLuise was born August 1, 1933, to Italian immigrants John and Vicenza DeLuise in Brooklyn, NY. He is the youngest of their three children with a sister, Antoinette (Anne) Daurio, and a brother Nick (deceased). He graduated from the High School of Performing Arts in New York and attended Tufts University in Boston, MA, all while concentrating on acting. He pursued that goal after college at the Cleveland Play House before moving back to New York.

In New York he landed a succession of theatrical roles including significant parts in Little Mary Sunshine, All for Love, and a revue called Another Evening with Harry Stoones, which also featured a young Barbra Streisand. At the same time, he began appearing in short films (The Ordeal of Thomas Moon) and developing the cabaret character “Dominick the Great,” a magician whose tricks never worked but whose comic persona did. His first TV appearance was on New York’s The Shari Lewis Show in the recurring role of Kenny Ketchum, private detective. He hit prime time with The Garry Moore Show in 1964 and blossomed that same year on the series The Entertainers, sharing the stage with Carol Burnett, John Davidson, Bob Newhart, Ruth Buzzi, Caterina Valenti, and other young talents.

Dom made his Broadway debut in 1963’s The Student Gypsy. In 1965, he married actress Carol Arthur (High Spirits, On the Town), whom he met while they were both performing in Provincetown, MA. In 1966, he became a regular on The Dean Martin Summer Show and in 1968 became the host of his own The Dom DeLuise Show.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s DeLuise made frequent appearances on The Dean Martin Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He began working in features with a small dramatic role in Fail-Safe (1964) directed by Sidney Lumet, who had been his teacher at the High School of Performing Arts. His comedy career began in earnest in 1966 when Doris Day specifically requested that he play her comic foil in The Glass Bottom Boat.

In 1970, DeLuise began working with Mel Brooks on The Twelve Chairs and became well known for his roles in Brooks’s Blazing Saddles, Silent Movie, History of the World Part 1, Spaceballs, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He became Burt Reynolds’s favorite male co-star (and good friend) in The Cannonball Run I and II, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and Smokey and the Bandit II. He also supported Gene Wilder in The World’s Greatest Lover and Haunted Honeymoon. In 1979 he made his directorial debut with the film Hot Stuff.

Throughout his career, Dom moved effortlessly between television and feature films, a rarity in an era in which performers were compartmentalized. He served variously as guest star (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir), game show guest (Hollywood Squares), talk show co-host (Mike Douglas Show) and series host (Candid Camera). The videos in the American Comedy Archives preserve almost this entire legacy and are from Dom DeLuise’s personal library.

During the 1980s and 1990s DeLuise appeared in several television ads and print advertising campaigns, most notably for Bertolli Olive Oil, Macy’s, Tools of the Trade, and Orkin. In addition to his continuing acting career, he developed two cookbooks under the title of, “Eat This…It’ll Make You Feel Better!” and made television appearances to perform cooking demonstrations.

DeLuise also wrote six children’s books and lent his voice to such animated films as An American Tail, and All Dogs Go To Heaven and various Cartoon Network shows.

In the late 1990s, he performed as Frosch the jailer in the Metropolitan Opera production of Die Fledermaus, adding to his repertoire of onstage performances: LUV, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Little Shop of Horrors, and others.

The DeLuises have been associated with several charity organizations, notably the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, and also the Professional Dancers Society, the National Italian American Foundation, and the Society of Singers.

Dom and Carol DeLuise have three sons: Peter, an actor-director, born in 1966; Michael, an actor and fine artist, born in 1969; and David, an actor-director, born in 1971. The DeLuises have three grandchildren: Riley, Dylan, and Jake.

Dom DeLuise died on May 4, 2009 in Santa Monica, CA.

Extent

18.5 linear feet

Additional Description

Arrangement

The collection is organized into fourteen series, which are based on the type and theme of the material.Items and series do not necessarily correlate with physical location.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The collection was donated to Emerson College by Carol DeLuise in May 2010.

Related Materials

The Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles maintains the majority of material related to Dom DeLuise’s feature-films.

UCLA Arts & Performance Special Collections holds a donation of papers, letters, scrapbooks, posters, photographs, and Playbills dating back to the 1950s from Carol DeLuise.

The UCLA Film and Television Archive has television show master tapes from the DeLuise Estate.