What's that?
It's a big building with a lot of sick people, but that's not important right now.
Oddly enough, I had just watched all three Naked Gun movies several weeks ago during a self-imposed DVD marathon. Always a big fan of these films, I marveled this time around at Leslie Nielsen's performance throughout. Only a special and truly unselfish actor would know how to deal the role of Detective Frank Drebin as perfectly as he did. Nielsen got the joke, but walked the tightrope ever so carefully. In the lesser hands of today's comedic hacks like Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, and the like, Drebin becomes an overplayed parody of himself. Instead, Leslie knew exactly the right tone for the comedy and masterfully never deviated from it over the course of all three movies.
Of course, on the dreaded Facebook, folks were lamenting Nielsen's passing by rehashing the same line from "Airplane" on their walls over and over again. All together now...
"I am serious. And don't call me Shirley."
Come on, folks. What else you got?
Frankly, one of my favorite moments from the Naked Gun series came in the first installment with this baseball montage from an Angel game inexplicably being played in Dodger Stadium. Drebin is umpiring and looking for an assassin. Leslie Nielsen and the producing Zucker brothers at their very best.
Hey, let's all not forget Nielsen's body of other work. Sci-fi fans will remember "Forbidden Planet." His audition for the role of Messala in "Ben-Hur" is one on the extras of that DVD box set. And super bizarr-o TV fans like me will recall his year as studio head John Bracken on one of my favorite shows of all time, "Bracken's World."
A woman I once worked with dated Leslie Nielsen for a bit and said he was a really nice guy and it's always important to note when one of the truly good ones passes on in Hollywood. Besides, he and I shared the same birthday. February 11. Except he was born in 1926 and I was born in...
Surely, you don't think I'm going to get more specific. And don't call me...
Dinner last night: Clubhouse salad at the Cheesecake Factory.
2 comments:
Nielsen is one of the great examples of an actor with comedy chops who never got cast in comedies until late in his career. Thank God he got the chance.
You're a M*A*S*H guy, so I'm sure you remember him appearing in an episode there are well.
He was one of those actors who seemed to make anything he was in better.
And I envy you on birthdays -- all I get are I.J. Simpson and Tom Hanks.
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