Things You Probably Didn't Know About Danny DeVito

While it may sound funny to hear that a monkey went after someone, it can be incredibly dangerous. Monkeys have sharp teeth and nails, so they can do a lot of damage despite their small size. When it happened to Danny DeVito, he described it as a horrifying experience. It happened while he was filming Batman Returns as the Penguin. In fact, it was the costume's threatening appearance that frightened the monkey, leading to the onslaught.

He described the monkey onslaught while appearing on The Graham Norton Show. "Everybody went [wild], you know, 'Cut! Cut! Cut!'... The guy comes over, the trainer comes over, pulling the monkey off, and rips the monkey off of my leg." Fortunately, the costume that frightened the monkey into attacking also protected the actor. He wore thick padding all over the costume, and it protected him from any damage, but that didn't make it any less pleasant of an experience.

For decades, Danny DeVito has managed to play some truly disturbing characters. Just look at his work as Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin in Batman Returns, or his more recent work as Frank Reynolds on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - the man has a unique ability to be truly disgusting. In Matilda, he and Rhea Perlman (his then real-life wife) were the despicable parents of the titular young lady, but he's nothing like his character in that film.

In real life, DeVito isn't a monster, and while he was working on Matilda, he proved this time and time again. While the movie was being filmed, Mara Wilson, the actress who played Matilda, was dealing with the fact that her mother was battling cancer. The couple took her out and spent time with her as if she were one of their own children to help her cope with what she was going through. Years later, she described how much that meant to her:

I was 8 years old. It was very hard... and they were very nice. While my mom was sick and in the hospital, they would invite me over and take care of me and get my mind off things. It felt very familial.

Like many actors who've been working in Hollywood for a long time, Danny DeVito has gotten into the producing game. Unlike most actors, he got started much sooner than most, and his directing credits go back to 1973 when he directed a short film called The Sound Sleeper. More than a decade later, he directed Throw Momma from the Train, and he followed this with The War of the Roses and Hoffa.

He also directed Matilda, Death to Smoochy, Duplex, and another short film called Curmudgeons, which came out in 2016. As for producing, he started that kind of work with Hoffa, and worked on a lot of movies over the years, including Reality Bites, Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, Feeling Minnesota, Gattaca, Man on the Moon, Erin Brockovich, Garden State, and several more. Not only has he been involved in making several important, award-winning films over the years, but he was also instrumental in getting Pulp Fiction made. Seeing how that movie catapulted Quentin Tarantino to international superstardom, his contributions cannot be discounted.

The final episode of the 11th season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has the group locked up in a cruise ship's makeshift brig for various offenses. This becomes a problem when the ship begins to sink, leaving them all to drown. When this happens, they all hold hands underwater as the end is seemingly right around the corner. For the main cast, sinking under the water to film the scene wasn't a problem, but for DeVito, sinking was difficult.

His body didn't want to sink, so he had to be weighed down by the crew. When filming came to an end, everyone but DeVito rose to the surface. This left lifeguards scrambling into the water to save him, and the experience wasn't fun for him. After the rescue, he went home early to recover, and when he was asked about it later by Extra, he explained that his life flashed before his eyes.

When Danny DeVito first met his future wife Rhea Perlman in 1971, it was pretty much love at first sight. Within two weeks, the pair had moved in with one another. They first met when Perlman saw DeVito's performance in The Shrinking Bride. She attended the performance to see a friend, so Perlman went out to eat with the cast and wound up sitting across from her future husband after the show.

According to DeVito, "She was vibrant, with a great sense of humor, and real warm." They married in 1982 after 10 years of living together and remained a couple for 40 years. Unfortunately, after four decades together, the couple separated in 2017, but they haven't gotten a divorce. In fact, while they don't live together anymore, they remain close friends and have no plans to file for divorce.

Perlman was asked about this on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in October 2019. "I’m not getting a divorce. That’s not in the picture, no, no, no. Not happening... what for? We do live separately. We see each other a lot, too."

You might have noticed Danny DeVito isn't a very tall man. In fact, he's relatively short, standing at 4 feet 10 inches (147 cm). His short stature is the result of multiple epiphyseal dysplasia, more commonly known as Fairbank's disease. The condition is a rare genetic disorder that affects bone growth.

Interestingly, his height hasn't been a major factor in his roles from throughout his career. While other actors may get jobs based on their height, that hasn't been true for DeVito. His height was addressed in an episode of Taxi, when his character, Louie De Palma, describes how he has to shop for pants in the boys' husky department.

It's an endearing scene, and it didn't hurt in helping him earn the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1981. When asked about the scene and the story his character tells, he explained: 

Oh, yes, I tell the story about my pants. That’s my story. Once I got to this size, I stopped growing, but I wasn’t skinny. So, I couldn’t go to a store and get clothes right off the rack. So, I used to have to go to the large boys’ department. I told [producers] Ed [Weinberger] and Jim [Brooks] this story. We put that in the show. It’s always good to draw from your life if you can.