LOS ANGELES:

, 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, Florida. 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-ft-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.

Critics argued he was being cast against type, but Nielsen disagreed.

"I've always been cast against type before," he said, adding comedy was what he'd really always wanted to do.

After the movie's success, the film making trio cast their new-found comic star as Detective Drebin in a TV series, "Police Squad," which trashed the clichés of Dragnet and other cop shows. Despite good reviews, NBC cancelled it after only four episodes.

"It didn't belong on TV," Nielsen later commented. "It had the kind of humour you had to pay attention to."

The Zuckers and Abraham converted the series into a feature film, The Naked Gun, with George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson and Priscilla Presley as Nielsen's co-stars. Its huge success led to sequels The Naked Gun 2 1/2 and The Naked Gun 33 1/3.

His later movies included All I Want for Christmas, Dracula: Dead and Loving It and Spy Hard.

great defence lawyer

Between films he often turned serious, touring with his one-man show on the life of the great defence lawyer, Clarence Darrow.

Nielsen was born February 11, 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan.

He grew up 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle at Fort Norman, where his father was an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The parents had three sons, and Nielsen once recalled, "There were 15 people in the village, including five of us. If my father arrested somebody in the winter, he'd have to wait until the thaw to turn him in."

The elder Nielsen was a troubled man who beat his wife and sons, and Leslie longed to escape. As soon as he graduated from high school at 17, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, even though he was legally deaf (he wore hearing aids most of his life.)

After the war, Nielsen worked as a disc jockey at a Calgary radio station, then studied at a Toronto radio school operated by Lorne Greene, who would go on to star on the hit TV series "Bonanza." A scholarship to the Neighbourhood Playhouse brought him to New York, where he immersed himself in live television.

Nielsen also was married to: Monica Boyer, 1950-1955; Sandy Ullman, 1958-74; and Brooks Oliver, 1981-85.

Nielsen and his second wife had two daughters, Thea and Maura.