( CNN ) -- Leslie Nielsen , whose longtime career as a dramatic actor took a sudden turn into comedy with spoofs like `` Airplane ! '' and `` The Naked Gun , '' has died at age 84 , his family said Sunday . The Canadian-born Nielsen 's career reached back into the early days of television , when he made frequent appearances on live drama series like `` Goodyear Playhouse . '' He played the earnest starship captain in the 1956 science fiction classic `` Forbidden Planet '' and made regular appearances on a wide range of TV dramas into the 1970s . Much of that changed in 1980 , when he was cast as a doctor aboard an endangered jetliner in the gag-a-minute disaster-movie parody `` Airplane ! '' Nielsen 's deadpan delivery of lines like `` I am serious -- and do n't call me Shirley '' helped launch a second career . The film 's producers went on to cast him in their short-lived television series `` Police Squad ! '' and had him reprise that show 's bumbling lead character , Lt. Frank Drebin , a decade later in three `` Naked Gun '' movies . Nielsen appeared in several similar but less-acclaimed spoofs following those films . Nielsen died of complications of pneumonia in a hospital near his home in Fort Lauderdale , Florida , surrounded by family and friends , a family statement said .
Nielsen died of complications from pneumonia , his family says . The earnest dramatic actor became a movie star after ` ` ! ! ''