The great ones leave us way too soon. Dom DeLuise has left the road on Earth for the big racetrack in the sky.
As a young boy, Burt Reynolds was my hero. Yet every hero needs a sidekick, and Burt Reynolds became as great as he was with considerable comic relief from the equally great Dom DeLuise.
As a favor to the Republican Party, Dom DeLuise helped attempt to deliver a pregnant elephant in “Smokey and the Bandit II.” Yet his hilarity peaked with “Cannonball Run” and “Cannonball Run II.”
Burt Reynolds was the cool guy everybody wanted to be and hang out with. Yet he was so serious about having fun that he often forgot how to actually have fun. Dom DeLuise truly just wanted to have fun. Winning was secondary.
When they are about to win a race, Dom DeLuise’s character Victor hears a woman crying for her drowning “baby.” Dom turns from the everyman Victor into “Captain Chaos,” or as Reynolds’s JJ refers to him derisively, “him.” JJ repeatedly scolds Victor, saying, “I don’t ever want to talk about ‘him.'”
‘He’ jumped in the water, saved what was actually a small dog, and cost his team the race. An enraged Reynolds wants an explanation, and Captain Chaos, beaming with pride, says, “JJ, I saved that woman’s dog.”
(My own attempt at “coolness” under pressure was taken straight from these guys)
The world needs straight men, but it needs court jesters. Dom DeLuise was no fool, building his brand name into a successful line of cookbooks and children’s books. Yet few ever played the fool better than he did.
Even a trip to the mini-market was amusing. “I picked up a beer for you, and a Dr. Pepper for me. I’m a pepper, you’re a pepper, he’s a pepper, she’s a pepper…”
Burt Reynolds had it easy. He would get exasperated by a character that would exasperate anybody. Yet DeLuise somehow kept his characters lovable.
We all have that person we know that “has a good heart.” They have “the best of intentions.” They “mean well.” Now those are euphemisms for screwups, and in real life they drive us crazy. Yet on the big screen, DeLuise helped us unwind. Why be uptight? Why go ballistic if we don’t win at something? Can’t we just have fun?
DeLuise was fun. He had plenty of success on his own, with absolute hilarity ensuing from his performance of Julius Caesar in “History of the World, Part I.”
Often mistaken for Chef Paul Prudhomme, it is no surprise that he became a chef himself.
He befriended Kermit the Frog, the first step in spreading “The Rainbow Connection.”
He was the tiger that befriended Feivel the Mouse.
He was the oddest of the “Spaceballs,” the voice of Pizza the Hutt.
In the same year he was “Fatso,” he was also Shadrach in “Wholly Moses.”
He was large in girth, and even more gigantic in spirit.
The racetrack just became a small bit emptier. We cannot drive on the same road forever.
Yet as Dom DeLuise reminded Burt Reynolds and all of us in “Cannonball Run,” with virtually zero eloquence and plenty of heart, it is the journey that matters, not the destination.
He did not always win the race, but he was a winner in life and in our hearts.
He was only the sidekick, but he was no second banana.
He was larger than life, and kept diving into the meal that is life itself.
He died a satiated man.
May we all get to experience as much flavor of this world as he did.
May we all have fun doing it.
Rest in peace, Captain Chaos.
eric
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