He passed away in his sleep last night. I’m sure it was probably something related to his ongoing battle with obesity but I will always remember him for all the funny things he did. Dom was one of the bright spots in those weak, vanity movies Burt Reynolds did (Cannonball Run comes to mind) and he had great moments in Mel Brooks’ films: Dom v. the Coke machine in Silent Movie was great. He even contributed to Dexter’s Laboratory as Dee Dee’s imaginary friend.
It wasn’t always comedy for him, he had a brief role in the really tense, scary nuclear war movie Fail-Safe in 1964. Dom plays Sgt. Collins, the Air Force technician who has to reveal top-secret information to his commander so the Soviet forces can shoot down the renegade American bombers.
Personally, the best comedic and dramatic role he did was semi-autobiographical, the lead character in Fatso. I wrote more about it here when I found the DVD.
Dom will be missed but he did leave a good body of work behind: books, TV and films.