🙁
What's your vector, Victor?
"Nice beaver!"
"Thanks, I just had it stuffed."
Crud. I can't edit the post above which is wrong. It was Peter Graves who uttered the vector Victor line.
Nielsen was hilarious. Remember him being a speaker at some big banquet. Then he heads to the bathroom with the microphone still working. Everyone heard every sound made while he was straining at the urinal.
Yeah, Police Squad! was a great, but short series. (Well worth renting.) He was the master of deadpan comedy.
Nielsen also starred in one of the best of the 50's sci-fi movies Forbidden Planet.
Actor Leslie Nielson, aged 84 has passed on, due to complications from pneumonia, in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
The "...and don't call me Shirley!" line was, of course, Nielsen’s most famous piece of dialog in the movie “Airplane”, a Zucker-Abrams-Zucker movie filled with absurd and surreal comic situations. The film was listed as one of the ten funniest movies of all time by the American Film Institute in 2000.
I first remember him as “The Swamp Fox”, Francis Marion on the Disney TV series.
Then on Saturday afternoon TV as Captain Adams in the film “Forbidden Planet” and again as the captain of the ill-fated cruise ship in “The Poseidon Adventure”.
Nielsen appeared in 100 movies and more than 1500 TV shows. After a long career in the 1950's and 60's as a dramatic lead, “Airplane” led to a whole new chapter. He specialized in playing deadpan comic roles, notably in the three Naked Gun films (based on a quickly cancelled six-episode television series called "Police Squad!"). The producers chose serious dramatic actors such as Nielsen, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges and George Kennedy in order to play against type, the idea being that they had no idea that what they were doing was funny. (O.J. Simpson played Nordberg, a sidekick detective with incredibly bad luck.)
This also led to Nielsen being cast in comedic spoofs of such films as “The Exorcist” (“Repossessed”), Die Hard” (“Spy Hard”), “The Fugitive” (“Wrongfully Accused”), “Dracula” (“Dracula: Dead and Loving It!") and “2001” (“2001: A Space Travesty”).
In a “life imitates art” moment, Nielsen was introduced to Queen Elizabeth II in a centennial ceremony at Saskatchewan in May, 2005. A plot to assassinate the Queen was at the heart of the plot of the first “Naked Gun” movie.
Surely, he will be missed......and don't call him Shirley!
Even without a script he was funny
Real life quote from Nielsen:
"I played a lot of leaders, autocratic sorts; perhaps it was my Canadian accent,"
He will be missed. Fortunately, his acting roles consisted of some wonderfully funny and talented writers and played perfectly to his comedic talents:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095705/quotes
Good laughs.
--
Ladd Nelson
Lt. Frank Drebin: Miss, I'm Lt. Frank Drebin, and this is Captain Ed Hocken, Police Squad.
Female Shop Assistant: Is this some kind of bust?
Lt. Frank Drebin: Well... it's very impressive, yes, but we need to ask you a few questions.
RIP...He'll be missed.
Rick
