Leslie Nielsen found a love for comedy through Police Squad!
Leslie Nielsen was an iconic actor who started his career all the way back in the 1950s and continued to add credits to his resume for many years until his death in 2010.
Early in Nielsen's career he was mostly known for being a serious, dramatic actor. And although he was good at it, he was a little better at being funny.
Some of his early work included Forbidden Planet (1956), Dark Intruder (1965), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), and Project: Kill (1976).
His transition to being a comedic actor instead of a dramatic one started with his role in the 1980 film Airplane! and continued with the 1982 series Police Squad! and the 1988 follow-up The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!.
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"I've seen myself profound and grave and I find myself breaking up," Nielsen said in a 1982 interview with The Orlando Sentinel. "I didn't realize how funny I was being... I watch a lot of heavy episodic drama and it's so filled with profound, empty seriousness."
Before he booked his role in Police Squad!, Nielsen was working on the hit film Airplane!. Many may remember this film for being a zany and irreverent spoof of every disaster movie to come before it.
From Airplane! came Police Squad!: Two Nielsen projects that needed no exclamation point, but got one anyway.
As a result of both projects, Nielsen's life would never be the same. He wasn't the serious guy anymore; he was the funny one. Nielsen described Police Squad! as "gentle insanity" where sight gags and straight-faced one-liners came in hot and heavy.
Each episode of the series sets up with a new guest star who is around just long enough to be murdered. This began the plot and the descent into madness. Anything could happen in Police Squad!, and it usually did.
"I love playing comedy and having fun," Nielsen said. "The only difference is that the insanity that I have in me, I've always had to keep off the screen and behind the camera because of the parts I was playing. Now I can do it in front of the camera."
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