Leslie Nielsen Online

passed away on November 28, 2010, due to complications from pneumonia. He was 84 years old. In his final years, he expressed deep gratitude for his late-career renaissance. He once joked, "I spent 30 years learning to be a serious actor, and it took one movie to turn me into a clown. I’ve never been happier."

The success of Airplane! led to the short-lived but brilliant TV series Police Squad! , where Nielsen introduced the world to Detective Frank Drebin. While the show only lasted six episodes, the character found a permanent home in The Naked Gun trilogy. Leslie Nielsen

. For over 30 years, he was a serious dramatic actor, often cast as a "straight-laced" lead in sci-fi classics like Forbidden Planet (1956) or disaster epics like The Poseidon Adventure Everything changed in 1980 with passed away on November 28, 2010, due to

His film debut in 1956’s Forbidden Planet —a sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest —seemed to cement his path. He played Commander Adams, a straight-laced leader. For the next two decades, Nielsen worked steadily. He was the guest star on every major TV show, from Bonanza to M A S H* to Hawaii Five-O . He was reliable, professional, andforgettable, yet he was often bored. He felt typecast as the "heavy," the guy who always lost the girl and the fight. He once joked, "I spent 30 years learning

If you were to look at a photo of Leslie Nielsen from the 1950s, you’d see the quintessential Hollywood leading man. He was tall, handsome, possessed a commanding baritone voice, and carried himself with a rigid, dignified posture. For the first thirty years of his career, that is exactly who he was: a dramatic actor.

When you hear the name , your brain likely conjures a specific image: a silver-haired, square-jawed man in a police uniform, tripping over a trash can, or earnestly declaring, “Don’t call me Shirley.” It is one of the strangest and most delightful ironies of Hollywood history that a man born to play dramatic heroes became the undisputed king of spoof comedy.

By the late 1970s, Nielsen’s career had hit a plateau. He was a working actor, but not a star. He was the guy you recognized but couldn't name. He was, in his own words, a "B-plus actor." He had no idea that his rigid, formal acting style was about to become the world’s greatest punchline.