Not the Face! You sissy marys!

Today Dom DeLuise passed away. Now it is always sad when someone dies, but Dom was a big old Teddy Bear, from his work with Mel Brooks in such films as Blazing Saddles and History of the World part one, and Spaceballs, to his work with Burt Reynolds in two Cannonball Run Movies and Smokey and The Bandit part 2. The one thing I always remembered about those films is that Burt Reynolds always slapped the shit out of him when they showed the bloopers during the closing credits. Sometimes it verged on the cruel, but Dom did not seem to mind. His roles in these later films were as big old teddy bears, whereas in the Brooks films he seemed to play truly outrageous people like Pizza the Hutt and the Gay Director in Blazing Saddles.

One of my memories of Dom was on my birthday a long time ago. (1981) In my house we always got to go to the movies as a family and the birthday person picked which film they wanted to see. Well that summer my sister was trying to urge me to see a film called Raiders of the Lost Ark. But I did not want to see it. I wanted to see The Cannonball Run. And we did. Dom's Captain Chaos captivated an 8 year old and I will always thank for him for that. RIP Dom, you deserve it.