Second deathlist score of the year: Dom DeLuise!
Granted, he was number seven on the bottom shelf, but let’s offer a full-figured farewell to Dom DeLuise, the jolly Burt Reynolds sidekick (remember those Win, Lose or Draw episodes), Dean Martin stock player, and Paul Prudhomme doppelganger. Seems the guy’s best work was always done in someone else’s shadow. But now I score a deathlist kill in his!
DeLuise was also a Mel Brooks perennial, and he starred in History of the World – Part I, which also (albeit briefly) featured recent croaker Bea Arthur. Not to mention Harvey Korman, whose corpse is not even a year old yet. Shecky Greene and Sid Caesar, maybe even Cloris Leachman, best make sure their papers are in order.
Because it’s not the top shelf, this death does not count for any competitive purposes. It’s just a feather in my cap, and my first bottom shelf kill since Marlon Brando in 2004. And yes, one day this blog will once again be something more than a deathlist place-holder. But alas, my paycheck duties, which involve stocking and packing one of DeLuise’s children’s books (King Bob’s New Clothes, if you’re curious) among thousands of others, beckon.
