Shirley not! Leslie Nielsen dies at 84.

Image via Wikipedia

There are so many clips you could post of Leslie Nielsen that it would fill several pages – the Guardian has an extensive selection, including a little-know screen test for Ben Hur – so we’ve chosen three of the ones that we remember most.

1. Forbidden Planet (Trailer) 1956

This was when I realised that Nielsen was first and foremost, a serious actor. Loosely-based on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and still performed by the RSC, the film has a standard plot common to most science-fiction of the time, but then that’s the least of the attractions, as the trailer quite rightly shows!

2. Police Squad – episode intro

In Color! Only six episodes ever made, but the humour later returned as The Naked Gun. Everything you ever needed to know about Cop “B” movies is here. In the prologues epilogues (doh!), the action always freezes, except that in this case, it is just the actors!

3 . Airplane – trailer – 1980

Thirty years old and still fresh, this movie must have some of the most quotable lines in the history of comedy, with the exception perhaps of Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
Notable, among many other things, for the comedy talents of Robert Stack, Peter Graves and Lloyd Bridges. Enjoy.

Strange Random Airplane Quote:

Rumack: Can you fly this plane, and land it?

Ted Striker: Surely you can’t be serious.

Rumack: I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley.

 

 

Related articles

• Leslie Nielsen Dead at 84 (justjared.buzznet.com)
• Leslie Nielsen 1926-2010 (popculturenerd.com)
• Remembering Leslie Nielsen, A Master Of The Art Of Not Being Funny (npr.org)