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Leslie Nielsen had the somber demeanor and
stone-serious face that were just right for dramatic roles. They
proved even better for comedy.


      "Surely you can't be serious," an airline passenger says to
Nielsen in "Airplane!" the 1980 hit that turned the actor from
dramatic leading man to comic star.


      "I am serious," Nielsen replies. "And don't call me
Shirley."


      The line was probably his most famous - and a perfect
distillation of his career.


      Nielsen, the dramatic lead in "Forbidden Planet" and "The
Poseidon Adventure" and the bumbling detective in "The Naked
Gun" comedies, died on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 84.


      The Canada native died from complications from pneumonia at a
hospital near his home, surrounded by his wife, Barbaree, and
friends, his agent John S. Kelly said in a statement.


      "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 Kelly.
      

Nielsen came to Hollywood in the mid-1950s after performing in
150 live television dramas in New York. With a craggily handsome
face, blond hair and 6-foot-2 height, he seemed ideal for a movie
leading man.


      Nielsen first performed as the king of France in the Paramount
operetta "The Vagabond King" with Kathryn Grayson.
    

  The film - he called it "The Vagabond Turkey" - flopped, but
MGM signed him to a seven-year contract.


      His first film for that studio was auspicious - as the space
ship commander in the science fiction classic "Forbidden Planet."
He found his best dramatic role as the captain of an overturned
ocean liner in the 1972 disaster movie, "The Poseidon Adventure."
      

Behind the camera, the serious actor was a well-known prankster.
That was an aspect of his personality never exploited, however,
until "Airplane!" was released in 1980 and became a huge hit.


      As the doctor aboard a plane in which the pilots, and some of
the passengers, become violently ill, Nielsen says they must get to
a hospital right away.
    

  "A hospital? What is it?" a flight attendant asks, inquiring
about the illness.


      "It's a big building with patients, but that's not important
right now," Nielsen deadpans.


      Critics argued he was being cast against type, but Nielsen
disagreed, saying comedy was what he intended to do all along.
     

 "I've always been cast against type before," he said of his
early years in Hollywood.


      It was what he would do for most of the rest of his career,
appearing in such comedies as "Repossessed" - a takeoff on "The
Exorcist" - and "Mr. Magoo," in which he played the title role
of the good-natured bumbler.


      But it took years before he got to do the comedy he wanted.


      He played Debbie Reynolds' sweetheart in 1957's popular "Tammy
and the Bachelor," and he became well known to baby boomers for
his role as the Revolutionary War fighter Francis Marion in the
Disney TV adventure series "The Swamp Fox."
     

 He asked to be released from his contract at MGM, and as a
freelancer, he appeared in a series of undistinguished movies.


      "I played a lot of leaders, autocratic sorts; perhaps it was my
Canadian accent," he said.


      Meanwhile, he remained active in television in guest roles. He
also starred in his own series, "The New Breed," "The
Protectors" and "Bracken's World," but all were short-lived.
     

 Then "Airplane!" captivated audiences and changed everything.


      Producers-directors-writers Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker
had hired Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges and Nielsen to
spoof their heroic TV images in a satire of flight-in-jeopardy
movies.


      After the movie's success, the filmmaking trio cast their
newfound comic star as Detective Drebin in a TV series, "Police
Squad," which trashed the cliches of "Dragnet" and other cop
shows. Despite good reviews, ABC quickly canceled it. Only six
episodes were made.


      "It didn't belong on TV," Nielsen later said. "It had the
kind of humor you had to pay attention to."


      The Zuckers and Abraham converted the series into a feature
film, "The Naked Gun," with George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson and
Priscilla Presley as Nielsen's co-stars. Its huge success led to
sequels "The Naked Gun 2 1/2" and "The Naked Gun 33 1/3."


      His later movies included "All I Want for Christmas,"
"Dracula: Dead and Loving It" and "Spy Hard."


      Between films he often turned serious, touring with his one-man
show on the life of the great defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow.


      Nielsen was born Feb. 11, 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan.


      He grew up 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle at Fort Norman,
where his father was an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police.


      The parents had three sons, and Nielsen once recalled, "There
were 15 people in the village, including five of us. If my father
arrested somebody in the winter, he'd have to wait until the thaw
to turn him in."


      The elder Nielsen was a troubled man who beat his wife and sons,
and Leslie longed to escape. As soon as he graduated from high
school at 17, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, even though
he was legally deaf (he wore hearing aids most of his life.)


      After the war, Nielsen worked as a disc jockey at a Calgary
radio station, then studied at a Toronto radio school operated by
Lorne Greene, who would go on to star on the hit TV series
"Bonanza." A scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse brought
him to New York, where he immersed himself in live television.


      Nielsen also was married to: Monica Boyer, 1950-1955; Sandy
Ullman, 1958-74; and Brooks Oliver, 1981-85.


      Nielsen and his second wife had two daughters, Thea and Maura.

Gallery

Leslie Nielsen, the dramatic lead in "Forbidden Planet" and "The
Poseidon Adventure" and the bumbling detective in "The Naked
Gun" comedies, died on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 84.

'Airplane' actor Leslie Nielsen dies

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