R.I.P. Lt. Frank Drebin aka Leslie Nielson
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Leslie Nielsen of ‘Naked Gun’ fame dies at age 84 (AP)
LOS ANGELES – Leslie Nielsen, who traded in his dramatic persona for inspired bumbling as a hapless doctor in “Airplane!” and the accident-prone detective Frank Drebin in “The Naked Gun” comedies, died on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 84.
The Canadian-born actor died from complications from pneumonia at a hospital near his home at 5:34 p.m., surrounded by his wife, Barbaree, and friends, his agent John S. Kelly said in a statement.
“We are saddened by the passing of beloved actor Leslie Nielsen, probably best remembered as Lt. Frank Drebin in ‘The Naked Gun’ series of pictures, but who enjoyed a more than 60-year career in motion pictures and television,” said Kelly.
Nielsen came to Hollywood in the mid-1950s after performing in 150 live television dramas in New York. With a craggily handsome face, blond hair and 6-foot-2 height, he seemed ideal for a movie leading man.
Nielsen first performed as the king of France in the Paramount operetta “The Vagabond King” with Kathryn Grayson.
The film — he called it “The Vagabond Turkey” — flopped, but MGM signed him to a seven-year contract.
His first film for that studio was auspicious — as the space ship commander in the science fiction classic “Forbidden Planet.” He found his best dramatic role as the captain of an overturned ocean liner in the 1972 disaster movie, “The Poseidon Adventure.”
He became known as a serious actor, although behind the camera he was a prankster. That was an aspect of his personality never exploited, however, until “Airplane!” was released in 1980 and became a huge hit.
As the doctor aboard a plane in which the pilots, and some of the passengers, become violently ill, Nielsen says they must get to a hospital right away.
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Lemmy, always an entertaining interview
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from:www. theIndependent.com
Growing old disgracefully: Lemmy on heartbreak, ageing and his penchant for Nazi memorabilia
He’s the famously hard-living lead singer of rock legends Motörhead. But could there be a soft side to Lemmy?
Interview by Nick Duerden
Sunday, 28 November 2010
JAKE WALTERSSolitary guy: ‘Even when I’m in an arena, surrounded by 10,000 people, I’m alone in my head’, says Lemmy
You hear him before you see him, the tell-tale clink of ice on glass, a glass that rarely leaves his right hand. In it, always the same concoction: whisky and Coke. It sees him through the day and keeps him – mercifully, as his entourage down the years will confirm – mostly nice and manageably mellow. You smell him next, the moment a roadie opens the door to the soundproofed rehearsal room to wheel out the drum-kit case. It’s an overpowering whiff of nicotine that quickly brings tears to the eyes. And then, through the smoke, you at last see him, sat on a chair, the only static thing in a room full of activity, and you realise it couldn’t ever have been anybody else.
It is early on a November evening in an industrial part of north London, a stone’s throw from Pentonville prison. Lemmy is winding down for the day. He has been here for several hours now, in preparation for Motörhead’s forthcoming European tour, and running through the new songs until he has them down pat. His band are in attendance, of course, but frankly it is difficult to know who, among the roadies packing away gear and getting ready to leave, ‘ might be the guitarist or the drummer. To the untrained eye, all heavy rockers look the same. Motörhead may always have been a band, but Lemmy was its sole focal point.
The man himself takes a puff on his cigarette as I approach, then looks up. In response to my anodyne greeting of “How are you?”, he chuckles and says, obliquely, “I can take it or leave it, son.” Up close, he does rather look his age; he’ll be 65 on Christmas Eve. The eyes are rheumy and craggy, the skin pallid and slack, the most famous warts in rock (two of them, both on the left cheek) as pronounced as distended nipples. His voice is a hoarse croak, but despite the ravages of time, he still cuts a formidable presence. Fast and reckless living, perpetuated over decades, has somehow not killed him. And if it does some day soon, he later suggests, “I’m ready for it.” But for now at least, he remains a prime example of heavy-metal magnificence, hirsute and black-clad and, even in weary exhaustion, robustly lascivious. “I’ve always had a way with a certain kind of girl,” he will say. The phrase “lock up your daughters” could have been invented for him go here and check out the rest of a great inteview!!
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