Dom Deluise

Dom Deluise died yesterday. He was a wonderful comedian and talented actor. His death struck me because our lives intersected some years ago. I was in marketing at Pizza Hut and we were approached by KingWorld with a proposal to do a promotion with a new Candid Camera show starring Dom. KingWorld is a major syndication player, having launched Oprah, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, etc. We expected that they would make Candid Camera a hit and we were interested. I was put in charge of the negotiations and oversaw the development of the program.

During that time I had a lot of meetings with Michael King, and sometimes his brother Roger. At that time they were some of the wealthiest men in the country, regularly on the Forbes list, and they did everything first class. One of our planning meetings was held at the Beverly Hills Hotel in one of the world-famous bungalows. Around lunchtime the doorbell rang and Michael King asked me to answer it. I did and to my surprise it was Dom Deluise holding boxes of Pizza Hut pizza. "Did anybody here order pizza?" he asked me.

We had lunch together and spent much of the afternoon talking about the show and the promotion. He was a huge man, well over 300 pounds. He was funny and profane but very warm and friendly. We talked about our families and he told some great stories about his kids. He also gave me a copy of a childrens book he had recently written, Charlie the Caterpillar, which I think we still have somewhere.

After only one season with Candid Camera Dom Deluise moved onto other things. But it was a pleasure to meet him and I'm sad that he is now gone.