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Leslie Nielsen, star of The Naked Gun films, dies aged 84
Leslie Nielsen, the actor best known for playing the accident-prone detective Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun comedy films, has died. He was 84.
By Murray Wardrop 7:36AM GMT 29 Nov 2010
The Canadian-born star died from complications from pneumonia at a hospital near his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at around 5.30pm local time with his wife Barbaree at his bedside.
During a career spanning six decades, Nielsen started out as a serious actor but traded his dramatic persona for comedy after starring in the 1980 film Airplane!. The movie’s success led to him being cast as Detective Drebin in the television show Police Squad – a spoof of Dragnet and other crime series.
Despite warm reviews, the series was axed by ABC after just four episodes but its makers successfully converted it into the film The Naked Gun, which became a box office hit. Its success led to sequels The Naked Gun 2 1/2 and The Naked Gun 33 1/3, in which Nielsen starred alongside George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson and Priscilla Presley.
In all, he appeared in more than 100 films and was honoured with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. "We are saddened by the passing of beloved actor Leslie Nielsen, probably best remembered as Lt. Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun series of pictures, but who enjoyed a more than 60-year career in motion pictures and television," said his agent John Kelly.
Although not his original calling in film, Nielsen’s role as a detective was in his blood as he was the son of a Canadian mounted policeman. Born on February 11, 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan, Nielsen grew up in Canada and served as a tailgunner in the Royal Canadian Air Force and as a radio disc jockey before studying acting in Toronto and then in New York City.
He got his first big break in 1950 with a Studio One television appearance, and came to Hollywood in 1954 to star in the film The Vagabond King for Casablanca director Michael Curtiz. The film, which Nielsen later referred to as The Vagabond Turkey, flopped, but he caught the eye of producer Nicholas Nayfack who offered him to audition for a role in the science fiction film Forbidden Planet.
Its success saw Nielsen signed to a long-term contract by MGM and he built a reputation for playing authority figures such as the captain of the ill-fated cruise ship in the 1972 feature The Poseidon Adventure. But later generations will best remember the silver-haired actor for his deadpan performances in Airplane! and the Naked Gun trilogy.
His hallmark became perfectly-timed delivery of deadpan lines like "Nice beaver", in Naked Gun as his girlfriend, played by Presley, stood above him on a ladder clutching a stuffed animal. Nielsen also appeared in the 1996 spoof Spy Hard as Agent WD-40, and in 1998's Wrongfully Accused, a parody of The Fugitive.
More recent acting roles included playing a buffoonish president in the 2003 Hollywood parody Scary Movie 3 and its 2006 sequel. But Nielsen also had a serious side. During the 1990s, he took to the stage in Darrow, a one-man drama about legendary "attorney for the damned" Clarence Darrow. "I didn't want to go ahead and be pegged for doing only comedy, although comedy is burgeoning," he said in an interview.
"I'd like to see how far I can stretch and keep on doing dumb and stupid (comedy) and drama and if possible be accepted at both. “There's a line with an audience you can't always cross over. Sometimes, they only want to see you being funny." Nielsen married four times, first to Monica Boyer, followed by Sandy Ullman, Brooks Oliver and Barbaree Earl. He had two daughters with his second wife, Thea and Maura.
