Actor Leslie Nielson, aged 84 has passed on, due to complications from pneumonia, in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
The "...and don't call me Shirley" line was, of course, Nielsen’s most famous piece of dialog in the movie “Airplane”, a Zucker-Abrams-Zucker movie filled with absurd and surreal comic situations. The film was listed as one of the ten funniest movies of all time by the American Film Institute in 2000.
I first remember him as “The Swamp Fox”, Francis Marion on the Disney TV series.
Then on Saturday afternoon TV as Captain Adams in the film “Forbidden Planet” and again as the captain of the ill-fated cruise ship in “The Poseidon Adventure”.
Nielsen appeared in 100 movies and more than 1500 TV shows. After a long career in the 1950's and 60's as a dramatic lead, “Airplane” led to a whole new chapter. He specialized in playing deadpan comic roles, notably in the three Naked Gun films (based on a quickly cancelled six-episode television series called "Police Squad!"). The producers chose serious dramatic actors such as Nielsen, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges and George Kennedy in order to play against type, the idea being that they had no idea that what they were doing was funny. (O.J. Simpson played Nordberg, a sidekick detective with incredibly bad luck.)
This also led to Nielsen being cast in comedic spoofs of such films as “The Exorcist” (“Repossessed”), Die Hard” (“Spy Hard”), “The Fugitive” (“Wrongfully Accused”), “Dracula” (“Dracula: Dead and Loving It!") and “2001” (“2001: A Space Travesty”).
In a “life imitates art” moment, Nielsen was introduced to Queen Elizabeth II in a centennial ceremony at Saskatchewan in May, 2005. A plot to assassinate the Queen was at the heart of the plot of the first “Naked Gun” movie.
Surely, he will be missed......and don't call him Shirley!
Leslie was one of a group of Canadian actors that worked "live" TV in the 1950's and landed good film roles from their performances. I first saw him in an early sci-fi series called "Tales of Tomorrow.
