Actor Leslie Nielsen is dead at age 84, according to Manitoba’s CJOB-68 station:
Canadian funnyman and actor Leslie Nielsen has passed away in hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.The star of comedy hits such as “Airplane” and the “Naked Gun” series dies of complications from pneumonia, according to his nephew Doug Nielsen, who lives in Richmond…
Click over for an audio interview.
Nielsen’s remarkable career spans deadly-serious roles in the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, the heavy in the infamous, but oh-so-1970s box office bomb Viva Knievel, and a guest starring role as an army general in an early episode of TV’s M*A*S*H (still played relatively straight), before his career was revitalized in the Zucker Brothers’ epochal 1980 comedy Airplane! Assuming reports of his death are accurate, one of his last roles was in David Zucker’s conservative 2008 film, An American Carol.
Update: Showbiz site TMZ sites Nielsen’s agent, reporting that he “tells TMZ Nielsen passed surrounded by his wife and friends at about 5:34 PM ET.”
Breaking News Online adds:
Canadian comedy actor Leslie Nielsen, famous from movies such as “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun”, died at a hospital in Florida on late Sunday afternoon, his agent confirmed. He was 84.”We are sadden 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 John S. Kelly, Nielsen’s agent.
He added: “Mr. Nielsen, 84, died of complications of pneumonia in a hospital near his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, surrounded by his lovely wife and dear friends.”
Kelly said that Nielsen, who had been hospitalized for nearly two weeks as a result of pneumonia, said the actor died at 5.34 p.m. EST.
The Cinema Blend Website has a nice obit for Nielsen and his lengthy career.
His death has put me in an entirely different kind of mood tonight. Altogether.
Here you go Kevin, in unison:
“His death has put me in an entirely different kind of mood tonight.”
Dang.
The sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard are my wife’s uncontrollable laughter watching Leslie in the Naked Gun series. My first into to Comedy was Airlpane movie at a drive in theatre. Thanks Leslie – you have touched my life. The art of comedy has ancient roots and you have made a monumental contribution. Rest in Peace.
He was one of my favorite actors. I’m honestly a bit crushed even though he lived a long life. That’s life… the man who made us laugh all these years finally reminded us that he can make us sad too.
Leslie Nielsen’s brother, Erik Hersholt Nielsen, PC, DFC, QC (February 24, 1924 – September 4, 2008) was a Canadian politician, and longtime Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament for Yukon. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, he was Minister of Public Works in the short-lived government of Prime Minister Joe Clark. After the Tories were defeated in the 1980 election, he served as Opposition House Leader from 1981 until 1983, and engineered the “Bell Ringing Affair“ to protest the Liberal government’s omnibus energy bill. The business of the Canadian House of Commons ground to a halt for three weeks because the Opposition refused to respond to the bell summoning Members of Parliament to come to the chamber to vote.
Nielsen served as Leader of the Opposition in 1983 between the resignation of Joe Clark and the election of Brian Mulroney as PC leader, and continued to lead the party in the House until Mulroney won a seat in a by-election, at which point Nielsen returned to his previous position as House Leader.
“And don’t call me Shirley”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A5t5_O8hdA
Unfortunately, they’re serious.
And don’t call me Shirley.
One of my favourite (sic) actors. I watched Airplane this week and used the don’t call me Shirley line on a client first chance I had.
“Can I be Frank with you?”
“You can be anyone you want with me, just tell me the truth.”
What a pisser!
Nielsen was hired for that first-season M*A*S*H episode to be the straight-laced foil, but if you go back and look at the scene with Leslie and Larry Linville (Frank Burns), after Nielsen’s convinced by Hawkeye and Trapper that Frank’s sexually interested in him, you could already tell he had a knack for playing comedy, even if it wouldn’t be fully developed until the Zucker brothers came along eight years later.
I actually will remember him mostly for this.
Yowch! Thanks for that reminder, but when I think bad Nielsen bad guy, I’ll think Day of the Animals.
Another Long-Dead Comedian Speaks Out
Red Skelton and the Pledge of Allegiance
Late comedian Red Skelton’s recitation and explication of “The Pledge of Allegiance” may be an oldie, but it’s still a goodie, no matter how hokie it seems in today’s jaded age, to today’s jaded youth especially.
It’s a simple presentation by a simple man, not simple in any pejorative sense, but simple in the sense of a low-key, basic, gentle man, and a gentleman who, at the same time was a complex, troubled, concerned, and very patriotic man.
His video recitation of the “Pledge” may be seen here: http://tiny.cc/r9u48, the complete text here: http://tiny.cc/bmeeg. The latter website urges the reader to, “Now more than ever listen to the meaning of [Skelton's] words.” There are much more to those words than simply the words.
The chief impulse for discussing Richard Bernard “Red” Skelton, one of America’s most beloved comedians of the forties, fifties, and sixties, arose from the reactions of my lawyer son and his speech therapist wife over the Thanksgiving weekend. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2856
Update: Showbiz site TMZ sites Nielsen’s agent, reporting that he “tells TMZ Nielsen passed surrounded by his wife and friends at about 5:34 PM ET.”
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Typo: Showbiz site TMZ “cites”, not “sites”.
Rest in Peace, my fellow Canadian Leslie Nielsen!
I was going to describe him as a national treasure but he’s really an international treasure….
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By the way, Ed Driscoll, if you’re looking in on these comments I’d like to point out that you’ve got two ads on this page for events that have already happened, Western CPAC 2009 and Blogworld in October 2010. Time to update or remove your ads, I think!
Good Guy, Funny Guy….seemed like someone you would enjoy being around even without his hollywood status….
So sad, that WW2 generation is going fast…my dad was born the same year, how many more holidays will we get with him?
Ever since “Airplane” I am sure that the average film fan has had more genuine, heartfelt and soul-satisfying bellylaughs watching Leslie Nielsen than anyone else. That’s quite a legacy.
Don’t forget, he was the Swamp Fox on a Disney series during the late 1950′s. That’s my first encounter with him. He will be missed.
Wow, I forgot that! Swamp Fox was one of my favorite programs when I was a kid. Thanks for the reminder.
I thought he was just marvelous during his straight acting career, when I was a kid. He was quite a well-respected leading man for many years before his comedy career developed. He could play anything; that’s how good he was.
This has been a very bad year for actors who appeared in Airplane!. First Peter Graves, then Barbara Billingsley, now Leslie Nielsen.
I recently read that a remake of Forbidden Planet (one of the all-time sci-fi classics) is in the works. It’s a shame Leslie won’t be able to see it. I hope they do a better job of it than that lame remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
I AM Shirley, and don’t call me Serious.
I just want to tell you good luck, Mr. Nielsen. We’re all counting on you.
I just want to tell you good luck, Mr. Nielsen. We’re all counting on you.
I still get a wild laughing when he landed on the lap of the Queen of England. I will really miss his great double takes, too. Leslie will not be an easy one to double.