A career in three acts: The movies that define Leslie Nielsen
While some actors can shift their image from movie to movie, very few have managed to transfer from one type of acting to another with any degree of success.
One man who achieved this over his illustrious career started out as a serious leading actor before completely reinventing himself in middle age as one of the masters of movie comedy. Don’t call him Shirley because his name is Leslie Nielsen.
From his first on-screen appearance in 1956 to his final cameo in a Pauly Shore comedy in 2011, the Canadian star lived many lives. Few actors get the privilege of accompanying multiple generations through their moviegoing lives, and even fewer do so in completely different guises.
But how did a leading man in the dying days of the studio era, who shared the screen with the likes of Gene Hackman, Angie Dickinson, and Debbie Reynolds, end up earning a living through pratfalls and one-liners? To find out, we have to go back to when a young Leslie got his first taste of Hollywood stardom.
Forbidden Planet (Fred M Wilcox, 1956)
After several bit parts in movies that were mostly flops, Nielsen’s big break came when producer Nicholas Nayfack offered him a role in his upcoming science fiction picture.
Forbidden Planet, a deep-space retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, featured Nielsen as Commander John J Adams, officer-in-charge of the ill-fated spaceship at the centre of the plot. Not only was the movie a hit at the time but it has also been recognised as one of the earliest influences on modern sci-fi. You can see elements of Forbidden Planet in Star Trek, Doctor Who, and the Mass Effect series of video games. Robby the Robot, a key character, has made dozens of cameos in everything from The Twilight Zone to Mork and Mindy.
Nielsen’s performance as the dashing, handsome Adams quickly catapulted him to Hollywood hero status. It would define his career for the next two decades as he attempted to carve out similar success. He essentially reprised this role in The Poseidon Adventure. Only this time, he was captain of a doomed cruise liner instead of a spaceship.
Unfortunately, this would be as good as it would get for Nielsen for some time. The big offers dried up, and it seemed as if he was heading the way of so many other now-forgotten names of 1950s cinemas. But then, something came along, something that would change the way people viewed him forever.
Airplane! (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, 1980)
Nielsen’s first foray into comedy had been on the TV show M*A*S*H in 1973. It would take another seven years for his talents to be fully realised through the character of Dr Rumack, the hapless physician aboard the titular Airplane!
The film regularly appears in lists of the funniest movies ever made, thanks in no small part to Nielsen’s incredible deadpan delivery of some of its most iconic lines. Airplane! was designed as a spoof of disaster movies, some of which Nielsen had starred in, and his “serious” approach to comedy was exactly what the filmmakers were going for.
Once the secret was out that Leslie Nielsen was one of the funniest men alive, there was no going back. Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker cast him as Frank Drebin in their new TV show, Police Squad!, a parody of cop shows. The series was cancelled just six episodes in, but Drebin would ride again in the three Naked Gun movies, which are also regarded as comedy classics.
In his sixth decade, years after he’d been written off as a tentpole star, Nielsen was now one of the most recognisable actors in the world. He might not have made it as a dramatic actor, but that didn’t matter one bit. Now, he was comedy royalty.
Scary Movie 3 (David Zucker, 2003)
Unfortunately, it looked as if history was repeating itself. More comedic roles, including as the main character in Mel Brooks’ Dracula: Dead and Loving It, didn’t generate the same level of enthusiasm as Airplane! or Naked Gun. Once again, Nielsen was on the verge of being written off before an old friend came to his rescue.
David Zucker, one of the directors of Airplane!, featured Nielsen in his film Scary Movie 3. Another parody, this time of the horror genre, this one saw the white-haired performer take on the role of Baxter Harris, the idiotic president of the United States. This was back when mad presidents were funny and not horrifyingly real.
Scary Movie 3 had seemingly unlocked a new formula for success for Nielsen, supporting players who stole every scene they were in. He played Harris again in Scary Movie 4 and served as the Uncle Ben figure in the spoof Superhero Movie in 2008.
For the second time in his career, Nielsen had pulled himself back from the brink and had established himself to an entirely new audience. He passed away in 2010, aged 84, with his legacy as a screen icon thoroughly secured.
Leslie Nielsen’s extraordinary run can be described in three words – never give up.
Every time it looked like he was down and out, he bounced back with something new, something unexpected, and enjoyed a 60-year-long career full of laughs as a result.
