PLUME: Were your parents proud of your accomplishments?

DeLUISE: Oh, they were thrilled. My father said, “See, you can-a make-a the money from-a the talk, then God bless.” “If you can make money by talking, then God bless you.” Very impressed. And my mother… I wrote a cookbook called Eat This, It’ll Make You Feel Better, and it was all about my mother. She was also interviewed with me, and she was wonderful. I said, “Can you believe” – and I was much bigger than my mother – I said “Can you believe that I once came out of her?” On the Merv Griffin Show I said this. And people laughed, and my mother gave me a little shot on the cheek. My mother was very skilled, and could make gorgeous, gorgeous things… like a bedspread… all done with one needle. She made blankets. She was amazing. When she came to my house, my mother would get up in the morning and go all through the garden. I have like thousands of plants outside. And she would take all the brown leaves and collect them in a bag. And then she would sit down, make bread, and then she’d say, “Give me anything that needs sewing.” So she would sit there and then we would bring her everything that had a rip, and she would proceed to sew everything for a day or two days. So you’d have the bread and she’d make things. She’d be crocheting… you know, she had this amazing energy. So I guess I’m very proud of my parents, even though my father scared the s*** out of me. I mean he was very, very proud of my accomplishments. My mother died when she was 91. My father died when he was 82. And they were coherent. My mother never said, “Who’s this, what’s that, what’s going on?” She knew everything… ’til the day she died, you know? It was pretty wonderful.

PLUME: Thankfully they got to see your tremendous success.

DeLUISE: Yeah, that was very sweet of them. I don’t think of tremendous, but that’s a nice word for me to hear you say.

PLUME: I think it’s applicable.

DeLUISE: Good, I’m pleased. I think of myself as a guy who’s still trying. I swear to you, there must be something… even Burt Reynolds, I said, “How do you deal?” and he said, “Every time I finish a movie I think, they’re gonna find out about me.”

PLUME: At what point do you figure, well, you know, the gig went well?

DeLUISE: You know something is very interesting. I hear… I play cards with Frank Sinatra’s widow, and when Frank was there we played cards together and it was wonderful to get to sit there. And now, Jeannie, Dean Martin’s wife, says, “Dean loved you! He said ‘That kid is terrific! That kid is terrific.'” She said, “He used to come home and talk about you all the time.” I tell you, I was so touched. I mean I knew Dean, but I didn’t know he went home and talked to his wife about me. You know? And she said, “And now that he’s gone, you’re mine.” And she gave me a kiss. She said, “I just love that I know you.” So then once in a while you think, “Geez, Dean really… S***. That’s wonderful.” It’s grand, you know? I have amazing fans. I mean people… we’ve spent time with Cary Grant and… it was wonderful. We went to the races. He said we’d like to go to the races, so we spent some time with him. In fact, in the book all about him, we’re in the end of the book, with Loni Anderson and Burt Reynolds and Carol and I and his wife and Cary Grant. It was wonderful to be with them. And we spent a nice day with him at the races, and he took my camera and said, “Carol, you and Dom get together.” Then I took a lot of pictures of Cary and Burt Reynolds and… Burt Reynolds made fun of me because I had my little camera. But then later, when I gave him pictures, he had them… you know, Burt has restaurants all over the place, and they appeared in every one of his homes and in all the restaurants. The pictures of him and Cary Grant and I, and of me and Carol.

PLUME: From the little camera that he made fun of.

DeLUISE: That’s right, my little camera. And then I’ll tell you a story about the camera in just a moment, but Carol was having breakfast the day after we were with Cary Grant and she started to cry. And I said, “What are you crying about?” and she said, “He was so nice to us.” To me. She says, “He was so nice to me.” That was Cary Grant, you know. One time I was in Washington, and there were 3,000 Italians there with the Italian American Association. And Danny Devito was being honored, and President Clinton was coming in, and they said, “When he gets here, can you start the evening off with a laugh?” and I said, “Sure. I don’t know, let me think.” So I got up after the president and Mrs. Clinton were there and I said, “Mr. President and Mrs. Clinton, this is so auspicious. Here we are honoring Danny Devito, and I’m so thrilled and I hope you don’t mind but I brought my camera.” I took the same camera that I still use. And I said, “And would you allow me to… Mr. President, could you stand up a moment?” So President Clinton on my right stood up and I gave him the camera, and I said, “Danny.” And I didn’t even tell Danny. And Danny got up and I put my arm around Danny, and President Clinton took four or five pictures of me and Danny Devito. So they laughed their asses off. I mean, it was just wonderful. And in fact, at the end, President Clinton gave his speech and he said, “I came here as the President, and I ended up as Dom DeLuise’s photographer.” In my second cookbook, there’s so many pictures of that. A lot of people took pictures. They’re all depicted. You actually see him taking the picture of me and Danny Devito. It was very special. And have I entertained some presidents? From Ford to… I can’t even think who’s after Ford…

PLUME: Carter…

DeLUISE: Carter, and then Reagan, and then Bush – the other Bush. Clinton… a lot with Clinton. That’s a lot of presidents to, you know… you go to the White House and it’s a thrill. It’s a f***ing thrill to be, you know – you’re sitting at a dinner and say, “Oh, am I gonna be able to say hello to Mrs. Bush?” And he says, “You’re sitting next to her.” “Really? I’m gonna sit next to Mrs. Bush? Okay!” So there’s hundreds of people, and you set right next to her. And I put my hand on her back and I, I rubbed her back a little bit, and I said, “Are you having a good time?” and she said, “I’m having a ball.” And then I went across the table and there was a very foreign looking man with a little pith helmet on. Not pith but… yes, yes, a little, little hat. And I said, “Would you take a picture of me and Mrs. Bush?” and he said, “Sure man.” And I said, “Oh.” And as I took the picture with Mrs. Bush, and this very handsome black man took a picture, and I said, “He spoke English very well,” believing he was a foreign dignitary. She said, “That’s Dizzy Gillespie.” I said, “Oh, Jesus Christ.” And then I said to Mrs. Bush, “Would you take a picture with me and Dizzy Gillespie?” So there’s a little boy in me who still, you know, goes to the White House with a little camera, you know? I’m not very sophisticated, but when I walk in I say to the drum & bugle corps, “I’d love to conduct someday.” The man took me, pulled my arm. I was on a little platform. And he gave me the baton, and I finished conducting the song that they were playing, and everybody gathered around – this is after I’ve been there a few times – and then he gave me the baton. Well, you know, that’s what you do for a child. You don’t do that for a… he saw the child in me, and I was so happy. I think I left with a lot of jellybeans, ’cause of Reagan. I mean, I had bags of jellybeans. And as I went down the spiral staircase to get out of the White House, the beans were like chk-kuh chk-kuh as I went down the stairs. I mean I stuffed my pockets. Little bags of jellybeans.

PLUME: Don’t you think that sense of wonder has kept you young?

DeLUISE: Yeah, it’s terrific. There’s no… there’s no way for me to be calm if I’m on a tour and they say, “Will these rooms do?” And then you’re in the presidential suite, and you look to the left of the room, there’s a television, there’s a bar, there’s food, there’s fruit. You look over there, there’s another… there’s three toilets. And they’re saying, “Will these facilities work for you?” And I go, “Oh, yeah, sure!” And I wanted to say, “They’re fine.” But I came to say, “It’s terrific! Oh my god, look! Look, there’s bananas!”

PLUME: And the windows don’t rattle.

DeLUISE: That’s right, the windows! So there’s a part of me that is so, you know, excited that we’re going to the White House. In fact I gave a show there, and I said, “You know, we really need the band to be… the audience has to face the other way.” And usually they have the performers standing in the Lincoln Room under the picture of Lincoln, and I said, “All the seats have to be facing this way so we can have the drum and bugle call in the hallway, so I can do my numbers.” I was gonna sing a number. And I drew a diagram, and when I got to the White House, all the seats were facing in the right direction. It’s not… you have to be very excited about that. One time I dressed up as Santa Claus, and Mrs. Reagan hid behind me. And then she poked out. She was gone. She poked her head out, and they took a lot of pictures of me as Santa Claus that year. You know, I said… these are thrills. These are thrills of a lifetime, you understand.

PLUME: We were talking about how you’re surprised at your career and still wanting to do more, and I look at the fact that I grew up watching your movies. I’m of a generation that you’re the first actor I ever identified as playing more than one role. I remember, as a kid, watching The Muppet Movie, then hearing your voice in The Secret of Nimh. That was the first time I got a sense that there are actors out there who do multiple roles. I remember watching Best Little Whorehouse in Texas on cable one day…

DeLUISE: That was a thrill too, doing that movie with Dolly Parton. She was bigger than life. But you know, she’s such a sweet, wonderful, very available person. And still is, you know.

PLUME: That was the first role you ever did based on a real person, wasn’t it?

DeLUISE: Absolutely. And then I got to meet him eventually, and he was sweet as pie. I heard he was like, nuts, but he was very kind. We went to dinner with him… this is years later, not when I did the movie.

PLUME: It’s Marvin Zindler, right?

DeLUISE: Right. Very, very sweet man.

PLUME: Had you done any preparation for the role?

DeLUISE: I saw a lot of his pieces… he said, “Welcome to the AAAAHHH witness news!” You know, he was very dramatic and passed a lot of lines, you know. But he was good hearted. One lady said that she lost $500 on a car, and he pursued it and got that money back for her and that was what he did. He righted a lot of wrongs.

PLUME: Was he happy with your performance?

DeLUISE: I’m not sure that we… I think he was flattered, you know, that he was… but he felt entitled to be depicted. I mean, he really… he had no chin, and he had a gigantic nose, and he was bald. So he had this wig composed, and then he had his nose made smaller, and then – like Carol Burnett and Elizabeth Taylor – he had his chin extended forward. They opened up inside and then they put a false chin, to give him a profile. ‘Cause he had a face that was… the furthest thing out was his nose and it just receded inside. So if you see a picture of him, he looks like a cartoon – and then he gave himself a face, you know?

PLUME: I know one of the great scenes of the film is in the dressing room as you’re getting ready for the performance.

DeLUISE: That was Burt’s idea. That was not in the play, of course, but that was Burt’s… I mean, his rendition. I mean that was a… it was almost dangerous. When he shocked me, they put silicone on the floor, and they said, “Hold your leg straight because when this machine pushes you, if your legs are not rigid, your legs will break.” So I stood stiff for a long, long time. I was exhausted by the time I was finished. And they pushed me 28 times, so my body would SLIDE along the floor, and they would shoot me from the top to get that one moment of me sliding right to the middle of the floor where there was a star in ceramic.

PLUME: I was always surprised you didn’t get hurt when you fell into the fountain.

DeLUISE: Oh my god. Well that was tough. All the leaves were being held in place by wires. It was like a stunt. It was just enough room for me to go back. I didn’t hit my head. And if you see it, it was risky. And me, of course, I just wanted to… I couldn’t get out of it because I got tangled in the wires. They had to help me.

PLUME: I guess it worked for the scene…

DeLUISE: Oh, yeah, it was fine. It was fine. That show was great to do, but I did everything on my own. I mean, I was running around. And if you see the dance numbers, it was very energetic.

PLUME: One of the great song performances in that, too.

DeLUISE: “You Got Trouble Right Here in River City?” No. “Texas Has a Whorehouse In It…” Dolly Parton was very sweet, and she came to my recordings and helped me relax. One time I was really hoarse. She said, “Sometimes you get great sound when you just sing right over it.” I was singing and it was 3:00 in the morning, and she was amazing. She’s an amazing person. She wanted to help me get it done correctly and well and relaxed.

PLUME: Do you think few people realize just how intelligent she is as well?

DeLUISE: Oh, I think everybody knows. They all love her. You know, people… when you say Dolly Parton, they say, “She’s so nice.” You know? And she is grand. When we were doing the picture, it was Halloween, and I said, “It’s Halloween, so happy Halloween.” She says, “It’s my favorite holiday. What are you gonna do?” And I said, “Oh, we’re gonna take the kids out.” They were young then. She said, “Can I come?” and I said, “Sure!” So she came. I remember we made chicken and lentils. Had lentil soup. And she arrived with red shoes and polka dots on her stockings. A short skirt. You didn’t see her bosoms because she had a peasant blouse on that was… I don’t mean peasant. I mean it was, it was… she looked like a little girl. Then she had polka dots on her face, and she had pigtails that stuck out, and a little hat. And she came trick or treating with my sons who were a werewolf and Dracula, and whatever the hell they were wearing. So we all went from house to house, and they would give her, “You’re a big little girl,” they said, and she collected candy. She was right in there. No one knew it was Dolly Parton.

PLUME: That wasn’t your first film with Burt Reynolds…

DeLUISE: No, no. The first film that I did with Burt Reynolds was, I think, Silent Movie. Or The End.

PLUME: Did you hit it off immediately with him?

DeLUISE: Oh, yeah. The first time I met Burt Reynolds, I was on the Johnny Carson show, and he was gonna be there, so I said, “You know what?” – he had already done the picture in the Cosmopolitan laying naked, so I said, “I’m gonna do that…” And I got the music, 2001 – “Ba ba ba ba ba ba.” And I said, “This is Burt Reynolds waking up in the morning.” And I pantomimed taking off my pajamas, stretching, taking off my pants and my pajamas, and looking in a mirror and checking my teeth, and then noticing my body. And as the music plays, you know, “daaa, daaa”… then I notice my penis in the mirror and I’d go, looking at my penis in the mirror, “DUN dun DUN dun DUN dun”… and the people were screaming. And then I laid on Johnny Carson’s desk, and I assumed the position where one arm is over my genitalia and the other one was holding my head as I laid down on the desk. And it was pretty amazing. I mean, I hadn’t met him until he came out. And then we really hit it off. I mean, he was funny and wonderful. And the very next day, there was delivered a handwritten note by Burt Reynolds and he said, “Dear Dom, Will you please leave me alone. Love, Burt.” And we have been friends like brothers ever since. I mean we… I’ve spent so much time with him and I did, like, you know like seven movies with him. Did a lot of movies with him.

PLUME: You can always see the chemistry in the movies that you did.

DeLUISE: Ah, he was great for me. And you know what he’s most comfortable doing in life, is making a movie. He is just so at home. You know, he directed The End. We did Silent Movie. We did Cannonball. We did Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

PLUME: So when are you teaming up again?

DeLUISE: He has an idea that we should be old people, and try to rob a bank and… he was gonna get Charles Durning and him and Shecky Green and… we have lunch once in a while. His son, his adopted son, is amazing. He’s 14 now, and Carol and I took him out to lunch with my son and his family, and he’s just darling. And his mother, Loni Anderson, is lovely. Lovely and sweet and wonderful and very dedicated to the boy. I was having spaghetti one time, when she wasn’t there and I was with Burt, and I guess I was talking with my mouth full and I was talking and he was young – I don’t know, maybe 12 – and he went, pointing to my mouth, “mm-mm-mm-mm” so I had to know that… I said, “Oh my mouth, I’m so sorry.” And it happened again and he went, “mm-mm-mm-mm” and I said, “Okay.” And I knew that Loni Anderson must have told him, “I don’t want to see what you’re chewing when you’re talking.” So he’s this amazing, wonderful… polite kid. He’s very sweet. And he hit it off with my grandchildren. He’s just a nice boy. And Burt wanted a son. One time I told Burt that I was taking a nap, and my son David wrote me a note, and he put it on my chest, and it said, “Dad, I love you, love David.” And I said I woke up and there was this little note, you know. And then Burt said “I’d give anything for that,” you know, “anything.” And I said, “You can have him for $250,000. You can take David right now.” He didn’t.

But he always wanted a son, and he loved the idea of having his own child. He was going with Sally Field for a long time. First of all, he loved Dinah Shore with all his heart. And he was very devoted. Everybody thinks he was sleeping with everybody, but he was sleeping with, you know, his love at the time, Dinah Shore. Then he changed to Sally Field, and he was going with Sally Field for a long time. Then we got a call that we were invited to dinner. And we accepted. And we went, and then I rang the bell. Loni Anderson answered the door, and I thought it was gonna be Sally Field, and I said, “S-Loni!” I mean, that’s when I found out that he was going with Loni Anderson, who he married.

PLUME: It’s unfortunate how ugly their divorce was.

DeLUISE: Oh it was just… like, people were throwing mud at them and they were wallowing in it. She was better. She didn’t say anything. But he, I think, used her… he was… it was very painful to him.

PLUME: Do you think he regrets some of the things he said at the time?

DeLUISE: I’m not sure. I only know that he was… it was not an easy divorce, that he paid a big price for that.

PLUME: Are they on speaking terms in dealing with their son?

DeLUISE: Now they talk. They’re fine. They have lunch together. He sees her, yeah, absolutely.

PLUME: How misunderstood do you think the public’s perception is of Burt Reynolds? Because few people know him as well as you do.

DeLUISE: Well, you know, they all have different opinions. First of all, he was the darling of the movies. When they loved him, they loved him. You know what I mean? In other words, he could do no wrong. But for some reason or other, when he had a divorce, they took umbrage to it. They weren’t fond of what happened. It was like the box office… he was the biggest box office draw for years and years. As was Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney was… you couldn’t find a bigger star when he was in his prime as a teenager. And Burt Reynolds had that same phenomenon, that he was like the biggest box office draw. In fact when he did Cannonball, he worked for three weeks – which was 15 days – and he made 15 million dollars on the movie. And then people were saying that’s disgusting, and he said, “I’ve been told that it’s disgusting and I was really stupid.” He said that it would be really stupid not to take the money. He said that when he would go do banquets, they were objecting to him. “I’m going to have $350,000 a word.” He was making a lot of money on those pictures.

PLUME: Well if people are willing to pay that much money, how can you turn it down?

DeLUISE: Well, the only thing there’s a lot of people think that he compromised himself. When I saw Cannonball with my kids… no, not Cannonball, Smokey & the Bandit, my kids came to me and they said, “Can I have this movie for my birthday?” I said, “What are you talking about?” They said, “On my birthday can I have this movie?” I said, “We don’t even do that.” He said, “Well can we? Can we?” And I went to Burt and I said, “My kids want this movie,” and he said, “It’s a drive-in movie. It’s only a drive-in movie.” And I said, holy mackerel, but we all loved it so much. And that movie went on to be historical. The man who wrote it was the man who got the coffee and the donuts. And he went to Hal Needham and said, “I have a script,” and Hal Needham said, “This is the worst script I ever… let me show it to Burt.” Burt looked at it and said, “This is the worst script I ever saw. But let me have it.” And he sent it to Jackie Gleason who said, “This is the worst script I ever read.” And then he sent it to Sally Field who said, what a surprise, “This is the worst script.” And then they fixed it up, and the man who sold the coffee and the donuts made two million dollars on that movie. Can you imagine? And then Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham made a lot of money with that movie.

PLUME: I don’t know why that film has a bad rap, or why Cannonball Run has a bad rap.

DeLUISE: Well, because they think it was not, uh… there was no substance. But people in the Midwest… you’ve just got to leave New York and California and Chicago, and you go to the Midwest and they say, “Dom, that movie Cannonball, we just luuuv it, luuuv it!” And they really mean it with all their hearts and souls. They really love that movie. And I just say, “Thank you very much.” You know, I can’t tell them, “I’ve done better work.” I can’t say that. When Victor, the little mechanic, becomes the strong Captain Marvel character and goes “dun dun DUNNN,”, they cheer for him. They love it. So a lot of people were happy with the Cannonball movies.

PLUME: I have a friend who’s a college graduate with an English literature degree, who’s working as a journalist, who all the time will – in your voice – call me JJ.

DeLUISE: Really? Oh, isn’t that sweet. Well that’s darling. I mean, look… there are all kinds of movies and… sometimes I see movies and I say, “Why, why did you make that movie?” For me, it doesn’t work. But a lot of times, people are… they’re eating it up, you know. Have you seen About Schmidt?

PLUME: I have seen About Schmidt.

DeLUISE: Yeah, I thought that was a wonderful performance on his part, but I was surprised that they went to so much trouble to shut up his jokes. I thought Kathy Bates should not have been asked to take her clothes off. Did you see that moment?

PLUME: Yes.

DeLUISE: Didn’t you want her to just, like, go in the water quickly? I felt bad for her.

PLUME: It struck me as a gratuitous moment.

DeLUISE: Yeah, because they could have been shooting his face… not too close, but I mean medium, and have her go in from right to left, and then you would know that he was seeing her body. You just had to get his reaction… but you didn’t need to see all that.

PLUME: It looked for a cheap pop in the audience.

DeLUISE: Was there a response to that?

PLUME: Yeah, it was along the lines of, this is gratuitous. This doesn’t serve the story.

DeLUISE: Well I thought it was… that was harsh. And I like her so much. But did you like the movie?

PLUME: I enjoyed it for the most part. I liked his performance, because it was so unlike him.

DeLUISE: I agree that he was unique and very, very, very unprotected, you know? I just wish that it was not so, uh… uh…

PLUME: Measured?

DeLUISE: Yeah, measured, yeah. ‘Cause everybody… they said, “Now you do this and then we’ll see Jack’s response to it,” you know…

PLUME: It’s like connect the dots.

DeLUISE: Yeah, right.

PLUME: Instead of being surprised as an audience, like you’re saying, everything was built up so much that you kinda saw things coming.

DeLUISE: Right. No, I don’t think that it’s the best… they keep saying Academy Awards, you know, because I guess he’s very unique, but he’s a darling. He can’t do anything wrong. I mean, he’s just so wonderful. I think one of the best things I’ve ever seen on the screen is As Good As It Gets. I loved that. I loved his performance in it. I mean, stepping over the cracks from that little dog, and…

PLUME: Well he deserved an Oscar for that.

DeLUISE: Oh, wonderful.

PLUME: But I think he deserved it for About Schmidt. Of course there’s so little competition this year.

DeLUISE: I did see Catch Me If You Can, and I thought that both those people were amazing. And I loved to see a 1978 program called To Tell The Truth. They just put it on because of the movie, and you saw this man that nobody voted for. There were three people saying that they were this imposter. And they finally said to him, after he got to talk, what was the narrowest escape? He said, “I was in a hotel, and the place was surrounded, and I came out a door, and three policemen grabbed me and I said, ‘O’Brien, FBI.’ And they said, ‘Oh excuse me sir, sorry,’ and I got in my car and I drove away.” But you just have to like him. Even though he was a crook and everything, he used to say “Well…” That was amazing, that he had the chutzpa to be the head of a hospital and not really betray it. He said, “Well, I’d read up on it.”

PLUME: I think the pilot thing scared me the most.

DeLUISE: He never flew a plane, he just knew the jargon.

PLUME: Well, he posed as a copilot so he wouldn’t have to fly the plane…

DeLUISE: Right, exactly. And I love the fact that he was with a woman, a prostitute, who said, “You know, can we work this out?” And then… “A thousand dollars.” And he had a lot of checks made out and he said, “I only have $1400.” And she said, “I’ll give you $400 and you give me the check.” Which was no good. And he said, “That actually happened.” Steven Spielberg had a lecture that a lot of people went to, and he said, “He told us that story and we just put it in the movie. He told us that, and now he’s in his 80s. And, you know, we wrote it and put it right in the movie and it’s great that she… he made $400 on an encounter.”

PLUME: Truth is stranger than fiction.

DeLUISE: Right. Did you see the movie? Did you see Catch Me?

PLUME: Yes.

DeLUISE: You see a lot of movies.

PLUME: Yeah. Well, it’s part of the job, unfortunately.

DeLUISE: Yeah, The Pianist is supposed to be amazing. I have not seen that. Polanski.

PLUME: I heard it’s very good, it just takes a long time to build.

DeLUISE: And also they said it was very sad. And they said it was like Schindler’s List.

PLUME: Well, Schindler’s List, I didn’t find to be very, very slow. But I’ve heard The Pianist is quite slow. I thought Schindler’s List moved pretty quick.

DeLUISE: Yeah, I loved the fact that Spielberg’s mother said, “You’re Jewish. Write something. Write something.” And so he ended up doing that movie, which I thought was grand.

PLUME: Well it was his most unpretentious film up to that point.

DeLUISE: Yeah, that’s right, right.

PLUME: And the one that didn’t crave popcorn box office…

DeLUISE: Right. Well, it was very moving. And then you knew that some of the people were around still. And when the actual people put the stones… I was gone by then.

PLUME: Wonderful, wonderful film.

DeLUISE: And then that actor, I loved him so much. Liam.

PLUME: Liam Neeson…

DeLUISE: Yeah.

(continued below…)

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