R.I.P. Leslie Nielsen

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The man had a real nack for comedy. I haven't liked everything he was in, but he's perfect for the goofy/wacky roles. Some of his spoofs are untouchable.

R.I.P. Mr. Nielson
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A dame that knows the ropes isn't likely to get tied up.
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It's getting to the point where all the famous people I loved when I was growing up are dying.

"Have you ever seen a grown man naked?" will be my chat-up line until the day I die.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
If it was his screen test why does the camera stay on the opposite actor?
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will.15's Avatar
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"Surely you understand this is a Roman world."

"Attilla the Hun would disagree and don't call me Shirley. But that's but important right now. What matters is two people don't matter in this big crazy world. So I'm going to run you over with my chariot."



Buy the ticket, take the ride.
When my boyfriend told me about him, I thought it was a joke 'cus he has a tendency to say people are dead when they're not.

Goodnight Sweet Prince.
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From David Zucker in today's Hollywood Reporter...

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Airplane and Naked Gun's David Zucker
Pens Tribute to Leslie Nielsen




Filmmaker fondly recalls to The Hollywood Reporter the friend and actor who
"never broke character, never let on that he knew he was being funny."


By David Zucker

It was summer 1979, a full three weeks before the start of shooting for Airplane! and our casting director had finally had enough. Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves and now Leslie…who?

At least audiences had heard of the first three, but this guy - it was true, when it came time to select an actor to play Dr. Rumack, my brother Jerry, Jim Abrahams and I remembered: "This one guy, he's been in hundreds of television shows, and I think he played the captain of the Poseidon. What's his name…?" Our research revealed that the actor's name was Leslie Nielsen. Jim, Jerry and I were thrilled when he agreed to meet, not because he was "funny" but because of his long résumé of serious films and TV. To us, he was hysterical. The long list of straight dramatic acting roles demonstrated to us that he would be perfect. When we watched those movies, we laughed.

At our first meeting, he mentioned proudly that he had done an episode of "M*A*S*H*".

We assured him we wouldn't count this brief comedy experience against him. But when he read the Airplane! script, he "got" its unconventional nature and offbeat style. We heard later that he told his agent, "Take whatever they offer; I'd pay them to do this."

Arguably the best role was that of Dr. Rumack, played by the guy no one wanted or ever suspected would be funny, much less go on to have a second career starring in feature films as a goofball comic. Leslie was great in the role because he never "winked" - let on that he knew he was in a comedy. This was essential to the style, and Leslie had a natural instinct for it.

In all the movies we did together, we hardly had to shower him with any verbal praise. He always knew he was doing OK because "I could hear David laughing during the take," he would say. And I was! Tough to just sit there silently during "Nice beaver!"

Offscreen, he wasn't so much of a joke or storyteller but a chronic prankster. The stories are legion about the fart machine, which he kept hidden and sprang on any hapless stranger who approached him. He used it on set, on talk shows, anywhere he could find a victim. One time, at a press junket in Charlotte, I remember watching Leslie let loose with the device on a crowded elevator, the other occupants squirming up against the walls in an effort to distance themselves. And just like the scenes we put him in, he never broke character, never let on that he knew he was being funny.

Leslie got the biggest kick out of his newfound status as an international comedy icon - almost as though that, too, was some kind of prank he had pulled. But mostly, he just really loved to laugh. Doing goofy things on and off the set made him happy, which was almost always his demeanor. And in turn, he made all of us happy. I think we all got along so well because we were all anarchists at heart - grown-up kids who still got the giggles from poking fun at authority figures.

As the years went on, I always tried to find a place for him in whatever movie I was doing. And he was always delighted to accept. And when each movie came out, he always turned out to be the funniest thing in it. A director couldn't ask for a better track record.

In the movie business, friendships tend to be intense - and brief. You live with someone every day for three months, and then, despite promises of keeping in touch, getting together, calling, you go back to your separate and individual lives. Looking back on it, I think I wanted Leslie to know that we valued him beyond that - and how much we all appreciated him, as a talented performer and a friend.

We invariably would get to discussing our history together, reminiscing a bit and renewing our good-natured debate about who the Hell was luckier to have met the other, Leslie Nielsen or the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team. The truth was, all of us knew how grateful we were to have each other in our lives, both professionally and personally, and we expressed it to each other often.

Leslie was grateful for everything in his life (most especially his wife Barbaree), almost as though he didn't feel he deserved any of it. Maybe that's why he was so happy.

And maybe that's why he was so good at making everyone else happy.


David Zucker, along with brother Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, cast Leslie Nielsen, then known for his dramatic work, as a deadpan doctor in Airplane! (1980), launching Nielsen's "second career" in such classic comedies as the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker Naked Gun films.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/airplane-naked-gun-s-david-49908
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Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Nielsen's screen test for Ben Hur

&feature=player_embedded#!
Wow! Cesare Danova as an Italian Ben-Hur? Nielsen could probably have played a pretty good Messala.
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will.15's Avatar
Semper Fooey
I don't even know who that Ben Hur actor was. Obviously they were more interested in him than Nielsen with the camera always on him. Nielsen would have been no better or worse than Stephen Boyd. As long as Hur didn't call him Shirley.



I best remember him for his unforgettable role of Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun, which to this very day remains one of my favourite comedies.



Lt. Frank Drebin: Now, Jane, what can you tell us about the man you saw last night?
Jane Spencer: He's Caucasian.
Ed Hocken: Caucasian?
Jane Spencer: Yeah, you know, a white guy. A moustache. About six-foot-three.
Lt. Frank Drebin: Awfully big moustache.




Frank: A good cop - needlessly cut down by some cowardly hoodlums.
Ed: No way for a man to die.
Frank: No... you're right, Ed. A parachute not opening... that's a way to die. Getting caught in the gears of a combine... having your nuts bit off by a Laplander, that's the way I wanna go.
Wilma Nordberg: [cries] Oh... Frank. This is terrible.
Ed: Don't you worry Wilma. Your husband is going to be alright. Don't you worry about anything. Just think positive. Never let a doubt enter your mind.
Frank: He's right, Wilma. But I wouldn't wait until the last minute to fill out those organ donor cards.
[Wilma cries again]
Ed: What I'm trying to say is that Wilma, as soon as Nordburg is better, he's welcome back at Police Squad.
Frank: Unless he's a drooling vegetable. But I think that's only common sense...
[Wilma cries again]



R.I.P. Leslie
Heaven just got a lot funnier.



It's pretty incredible how low spoof movies sunk since the glory days of Airplane, at al.

'Awfully big moustache' is an amazing line. And Nielsen's delivery was pitch-perfect.



He will be missed...



What a beautiful summation of his career, Will. Really, what's the point of that comment? Do you think a single person on this site is going to read that and come away more educated, or even amused, or glad you made it in any way?
Actually, Yoda, I enjoyed Will's insightful wisecrack more than I did your PC lecture. I'm sure Nielsen would have agreed with him, too--he was every bit as bad in that role as was Walter Mathau as Mr. Wilson in that awful Dennis the Menace film.



You can disagree with me if you like, but I'm hardly "PC" in general and I don't think my "lecture" (which is three whole sentences; hope I didn't put anyone to sleep) was, either. And how is saying that an obviously terrible movie was terrible "insightful"? I've elaborated on my initial post in two or three posts afterwards and it's been resolved without much ado, anyway. I don't know if you saw any of these other posts, but your response suggests you haven't.

As for what Nielsen would have thought: I don't know. And I don't think you do, either, despite how "sure" you might be of it. Also, I have little doubt it was a terrible movie, but whatever minor dispute there was had nothing to do with accuracy.



I once saw Nielsen in person in the lobby of a Houston hotel. It was several years ago and I was on my way to cover a press luncheon in the hotel. An industry exec and I arrived simultaneously at the entrance and went in together. A short distance past the door was standing a well-dressed man in casual wear whose face looked familar. Maybe the exec waved or nodded; anyway, the man looked at us and said something along the lines of "Hi, how are you?" which convinced that this was someone I knew. For some reason, if I come unexpectedly upon a business acqaintance outside of his usual surroundings, it often takes me awhile to put a name to the face I recognize. So I'm going up these stairs trying to remember for the life of me who is that and what company is he with? Suddenly it dawns on me--he's Leslie Nielsen.

I've read Nielsen had a whoopee-cushion sense of humor and he certainly was good in his later comedy roles, but I also remember him in as the oh-so-straight-laced leading man in his Swamp Fox TV series and as Debbie Reynold's love interest on the big screen and particularly as the villain who Glenn Ford confronts in The Sheepman (a comic Western in which Nielsen was about the only character who didn't have a funny line). He was a very versatile actor, even if he couldn't breathe life into his role as Mr. McGoo.