Leslie Nielsen, 1926–2010

Standing 6 feet, 2 inches, with craggy good looks, a thick shock of white hair, and a smooth baritone speaking voice, Leslie Nielsen had all the physical attributes of a fine dramatic actor. Indeed, only dignity was missing from the otherwise impressive package. Producer Jerry Zucker recalled a meeting in which Nielsen “kept emitting gas in a very loud and embarrassing manner. We just assumed he’d been to Mexico.” In fact, Nielsen had employed a “rubber gadget” to make the offensive sounds. That’s when, says Zucker, “we realized that what we had here was a 10-year-old dipstick parading around as a genteel 50-year-old.”

Prior to his comic breakthrough in the 1980 disaster-movie spoof Airplane!, Nielsen had a long career as a serious actor, said The Washington Post. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, to an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force at 17, before moving to Toronto to study acting. From there he went to New York, where he studied at the Actors Studio. In the mid-1950s, he decamped to Hollywood, and soon landed one of his most memorable parts—the spaceship commander in Forbidden Planet, a science-fiction film adapted from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

His big break came relatively late in his career, said Time.com. Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, and David Zucker “were looking for a man who could play as if entirely unaware he were the funniest character in a movie.” Nielsen, “with his gleaming white hair and rock-solid expression of authority,” fit the bill perfectly. His trademark line came in response to a character’s exclamation that, “Surely you can’t be serious!” Replied Nielsen: “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”

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After the success of Airplane!, Nielsen played bumbling, clueless Frank Drebin in Police Squad, a TV spoof of cop shows, and in the Naked Gun movies spun off from that short-lived series. He disagreed with critics who said the humor in such parts sprang from his being cast against type. To the contrary, he said, “I’ve always been cast against type” in serious roles.