Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. was born in Neptune Township, New Jersey, the son of Daniel DeVito Sr., a small business owner, and Julia Moccello. He grew up in a family of five, with his parents and two older sisters. He is of Italian descent; his family is originally from San Fele, Basilicata, as well as Calabria.
When he was 14, he persuaded his father to send him to boarding school to “keep him out of trouble”, and graduated from Oratory Preparatory School in Summit, New Jersey, in 1962. He trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he graduated in 1966. In his early theater days, he performed with the Colonnades Theater Lab at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. Along with his future wife Rhea Perlman, he appeared in plays produced by the Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective.
In 1977, DeVito played the role of John “John John the Apple” DeAppoliso in the Starsky & Hutch episode “The Collector”. In 1986, he directed and starred in the black comedy “The Wedding Ring”, a season 2 episode of Steven Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories, where his character acquires an engagement ring for his wife (played by DeVito’s real-life wife, actress Rhea Perlman). DeVito gained fame in 1978 playing Louie De Palma, the short but domineering dispatcher for the fictional Sunshine Cab Company, on the hit TV show Taxi.
After his time on the Taxi series ended, DeVito devoted more effort to a growing successful film career, appearing as Vernon Dalhart in the 1983 hit Terms of Endearment; as the comic rogue Ralph in the romantic adventure Romancing the Stone (1984), starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner; and its sequel, The Jewel of the Nile (1985). In 1987 he made his feature-directing debut with the dark comedy Throw Momma from the Train, in which he starred with Billy Crystal and Anne Ramsey. He reunited with Douglas and Turner two years later in The War of the Roses (1989), which he directed and in which he co-starred.
Other work included the comedies Junior (1994) and Twins (1988) with Arnold Schwarzenegger; playing the villain The Penguin in director Tim Burton’s Batman Returns (1992); and the film adaptation Matilda (1996), which he directed and co-produced, along with playing the role of Matilda’s father, the villainous car dealer Harry Wormwood.
Although generally a comic actor, DeVito expanded into dramatic roles with The Rainmaker (1997); Hoffa (1992), which he directed and in which he co-starred with Jack Nicholson; Jack the Bear (1993); neo-noir film L.A. Confidential (1997); The Big Kahuna (1999); and Heist (2001), as a gangster nemesis of Joe Moore (Gene Hackman).
In 2011, DeVito received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television.
DeVito has become a major film and television producer. DeVito founded Jersey Films in 1991, producing films like Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, Erin Brockovich (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture), Gattaca, and Garden State. In 1999, he produced and co-starred in Man on the Moon, a film about the unusual life of his former Taxi co-star Andy Kaufman, played in the film by Jim Carrey. DeVito also produced the Comedy Central series Reno 911!, the film spin-off Reno 911!: Miami, and the upcoming revival on Quibi.