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Not Leslie Nielsen!!

23_Carra_Gold

By 23_Carra_Gold,
in GF - General Forum

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Steve Holt Mentor

Steve Holt

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Really gutted by this. The man was a big part of the soundtrack of my childhood. I just bought Police Squad and The Naked Gun trilogy on dvd a few months ago. I'll be watching them again very soon to honour his memory.

 

RIP Leslie. Thank you for helping to shape my sense of humour.

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neko Grand Master

neko

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damn - just woke up to this news.

 

Actor Leslie Nielsen dies at 84 - The Globe and Mail

 

Actor Leslie Nielsen dies at 84

 

Leslie Nielsen, a Canadian-born actor who went from drama to inspired bumbling as a hapless doctor in Airplane! and the accident-prone detective Frank Drebin in the The Naked Gun comedies, died on Sunday in Florida. He was 84.

 

His agent, John S. Kelly, said Nielsen died at a hospital near his home in Ft. Lauderdale where he was being treated for pneumonia.

 

Nielsen's nephew Doug Nielsen, who lives in Richmond, B.C., said his uncle had been hospitalized for the past 12 days and died in his sleep with wife Barbaree by his side.

 

Nielsen's Canadian roots run deep. Though he eventually became a naturalized U.S. citizen, his father was a Mountie and his brother, Erik Nielsen, served as an MP in Yukon and as deputy prime minister in Brian Mulroney's Conservative government.

 

Leslie Nielsen was born Feb. 11, 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan. (my home town)

 

At age 17, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and trained as an aerial gunner.

 

After the war, he 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 Neighbourhood Playhouse brought him to New York, where he immersed himself in live television.

 

Nielsen appeared in more than 100 films, including 2002's Men With Brooms, co-starring Paul Gross. In recent years, he appeared on the Canadian TV series Robson Arms.

 

Among his lesser known, but truly-Canuck performances, was a two-minute narration for a video shown to the Queen and thousands of spectators in England when she was presented with a horse from the RCMP's Musical Ride in 2009.

 

In 2003, Canadian actors union ACTRA presented him with its Award of Excellence for more than a half-century of making movies.

 

Doug Nielsen said he and his own wife had only two weeks ago enjoyed watching Tammy and the Bachelor, in which Nielsen starred in 1957.

 

“He was always a funny guy,” the 63-year-old said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

 

“When he started out he was a serious actor and then after Airplane, the whole world changed for him.”

 

As a teen, the elder Nielsen had invited Doug to visit him on film and TV sets in California, even encouraging him to become an actor. The nephew instead became a dentist – and his uncle would fly to Canada so Doug could take care of his teeth.

 

“We loved him dearly and we'll miss him and he was a good friend of mine, not just my uncle. I think that's a tribute to him and his interests and just his warmth.”

 

Don McKellar, an acclaimed Canadian writer, filmmaker and star of the cartoon TV series Odd Job Jack which featured Nielsen in an episode, said Sunday that he only met the comic actor a couple of times but enjoyed working with him.

 

“He reinvented that funny straightman for his generation, you see some of that oblivious straight guy in Steve Carell and Will Ferrell.”

 

Robson Arms producer, Brian Hamilton, told The Canadian Press that Neilsen was a pleasure to work with – always keeping the atmosphere light with his mischievous sense of humour.

 

“He didn't take himself, or anyone else, too seriously and he was someone who lightened the tone on sets constantly, even when we were under stress or a tight time frame,” said Hamilton.

 

“He was always the one to crack a smile and keep everyone in a light mood and frame of mind.”

 

On Robson's second season, Neilson played a crusty old ex-hockey player who runs a pizza business while being stuck in a motorized wheelchair.

 

Though he was the elder statesman of the cast with an impressive history in the business, Hamilton said Neilsen, in his own unique way, soon put his co-workers at ease.

 

“Very quickly he gave us a sense of the kind of fun loving guy he was because he would walk up to a group, and all of a sudden there would be this whoopee cushion going off and people would be cracking up.”

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