(Credit: Jerry Angelica)
Tue 5 August 2025 9:00, UK
From his role as President Harris in the Scary Movie series and the inept Lt Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun, who, despite always trying to do the right thing, always makes a mess of anything, to his infamous line, “I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley” as Dr Rumack in the 1980 film Airplane!, Leslie Nielsen truly was the king of goofy comedy.
The Canadian actor’s long career, which spanned 60 years, more than 100 films, and 150 television programmes, portraying more than 220 characters, earned him the honourable accolade of being, in the words of film critic Roger Elbert, “The Olivier of spoofs”.
Despite this reputation, Nielsen’s comedic career didn’t take off until the 1980s, when Airplane! was released in cinemas. Ironically, he never intended to adopt this persona but rather fell into it when he arrived in Hollywood from Canada in the 1950s as an awkward and uptight young aspiring actor.
Nielsen told American film critic Leonard Maltin that he was so panicked at MGM discovering “at any moment that I had no talent and were not only going to throw me out of the studio but have me packed and shipped back to Canada! So I was very tight and tense, and it affected my way of speaking.”
The actor called it his “Donald Duck period”, which eventually earned him his reputation as the comedy actor who never cracked a smile. In fact, Nielsen took his acting incredibly seriously, having studied with the renowned Sanford Meisner at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York.
This awkward sincerity resulted in some of the funniest movies of all time, with his characters’ deadpan earnestness becoming a defining feature of his career. Hence, it’s no surprise that when asked how to make a great comedy, Nielsen credited a “serious” disposition as the most important factor in a good spoof.
Speaking about the secret to the success of films like The Naked Gun and Airplane!, both by American parody film director David Zucker, Nielsen told Maltin, “You must be serious about doing your spoof, and you must always go for credibility. If the audience for one second starts to feel that you are in on the joke, that’s the end of it and it’s over.”
He often carried this into his interviews with the press. In a 1994 interview on Kenny Live about his autobiography, The Naked Truth, which includes tales of a marriage to actor Michelle Pfeiffer and a telephone affair he had with Elizabeth Taylor, the actor told presenter Pat Kenny, “Everything in that autobiography is true except for the facts”.
He later joked with the press, “I have no goals or ambition”, seemingly playing off any hints of seriousness you could ever associate with him.
A follow-up to The Naked Gun, starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, is coming to cinemas this August, with Neeson playing the role of Frank Drebin’s son—an equally bumbling and inept man, who must solve a murder case to prevent the police department from shutting down. Despite big shoes to fill, the iconic actor has been praised for doing justice to one of Nielsen’s most iconic roles.
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