Dom DeLuise Dead At Age 75

Dom DeLuise

Dom DeLuise the comic actor who gained fame from television and movies such as “Blazing Saddles” and “Smokey and the Bandit II,” died at age 75.

DeLuise died Monday night at a hospital in the Los Angeles community of Santa Monica, his agent Robert Malcolm said.

“It’s easy to mourn his death, but easier to remember a time when he made you laugh,” DeLuise’s family said in a statement.

No cause of death was given, but it was said that DeLuise had health problems including high blood pressure and diabetes.

In December of 2008 the actor told TV show “Entertainment Tonight” that he had been fighting prostate cancer. “I’m still here. I’m 75 and here. I feel very blessed,” he said.

Dominick “Dom” DeLuise was born August 1, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York. He began his career in movies and on TV in the 1960s, and he gained widespread fame on the Dean Martin Show as “Dominick the Great,” a magician whose act always went anything but good.

For a brief period of time in 1968, he was given his own TV program, “The Dom DeLuise Show,” and he later proved to be appealing as a guest star in sketch comedies and other shows.

“I loved him from the moment we met. Not only did we have the greatest time working together, but I never laughed so hard in my life as when we were together,” Doris Day, who starred with DeLuise in a 1966 movie, said in a statement.

In the 1970s, he became a normal actor in Mel Brooks’ comedies. He appeared in the Western spoof “Blazing Saddles,” as well as “Silent Movie,” “History of the World: Part 1,” and “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.”

“Dom DeLuise was a big man in every way. He was big in size and created big laughter and joy,” Brooks said in a statement.

DeLuise also made films with Burt Reynolds. Reynolds told “Entertainment Tonight” that he “never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. I will miss him very much.”

In the 1980s and 1990s, DeLuise worked on a wide variety of movies and TV shows such as “Beverly Hills 90210″ and “3rd Rock from the Sun,” and he hosted “Candid Camera” from 1991 to 1992.