It's A Big Building With Patients, But That's Not Important Right Now

[filkertom]

Sadness. Actor Leslie Nielsen, who played a variety of tough-jawed roles (including Commander John J. Adams in Forbidden Planet) in the 50s and 60s but reshaped his career into comedy thanks to the Airplane! and The Naked Gun movies, has passed away at the age of 84. He was one of those actors who's pretty much always good. Farewell, sir, and thanks.

Comments

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Enh... Knowing him, he'd want us to laugh.

So long, Les... We'll forgive you for "An American Carol".

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Why was he in that movie anyway? Knowing that would help me forgive him ... a little.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Are you sitting down?

This may be a shocker.

Because...

.
.
.

They PAID him to be!

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Was he that desperate? Wait, he appeared in the Scary Movie series.

I'm not him, I don't know his situation. But even though I'm between jobs I would not take a position in a political company. Not only because it would be a bad match, but I have my standards. (Plus I'd be worried they were only using me to create a scandal as in "We didn't know the ebil liberal would erase our files and database! We trusted him!" "I did no such thing!" "Yes you did, why do you think we hired you?")

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Think about it, Al. The man was over 80 and a people he not only worked with before but became a frickin' meme because of said work asked him to help them out with a new project.

Give the guy a break, huh?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

This. I sure hope I'm still getting asked to perform when I'm eighty.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

If you are, I'll still be buying your concerts.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Thing is I did see one Scary Movie with a date and it was the only time a movie grossed me out so bad I almost vomited. It wasn't a scene he was in so I'll let that one go. But for AC, I guess he was in a difficult situation and can take some satisfaction the movie bombed. But full forgiveness will have to wait until the conservatives tone down their rhetoric and stop acting like they're the only ones who can be patriots.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I liked his golf videos, "I don't play golf to feel bad. I play bad golf but feel good." One thing I'll never understand is why he was in that abomination called "American Carol". (Well that and the Scary Movie and related roles.) I never could quite forgive him for that. I'll just try to remember him for Naked Gun, Airplane, Bad Golf, and Dead and Loving It.

And, oh yes, "City on Fire" lampooned by MST3K back when it was a local TV show.

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

He was the best straight man in 30 years!

And, yeah, in "Forbidden Planet" he was quite the leading, heroic gentleman.

I'll really miss him!

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

Don't forget Naked Space (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082213/), aka The Creature Wasn't Nice (1983) also staring Cindy Williams and Bruce Kimmel. It has a great musical number in it.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEyEL-BvbqQ

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

Yep, that musical number.

[misterseth.livejournal.com]

Truly sad. I never called him Shirley.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.

[salkryn.livejournal.com]

Surely you're joking.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Leslie Nielsen also did a marvelous semi-serious recurring role in the show DUE SOUTH as an aging Mountie battling PTSD -- who was also the only other person who could see Sgt. Fraser's dead father.

[ninkasa.livejournal.com]

THIS. I'd nearly forgotten that.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

The weird part is this. In 1970 there was a soap-opera-ish TV show called Bracken's World. It was about "Century Studios," shot on the 20th Century-Fox lot, about a bunch of young actors and actresses and how they were continuing Hollywood history, even though traditional Hollywood was just about dead when this show was made.

The title character, studio head Bracken, was played by Nielsen. For the first season he was just a disembodied voice on the telephone, talking to his executive assistant. As the series declined, in its second and last season, Nielsen showed up on-camera as Bracken.

The weird part is this. This was parodied, not by Nielsen who would have had fun with it, but by John Forsythe's voice in Charlie's Angels.

[sexybass.livejournal.com]

He will be sadly missed by his fellow Canadians.