UnNews:Leslie Nielsen is old

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11 February 2007

Leslie celebrates 81st birthday

PHOENIX, Arizona, Sunday (Reuters) — He has worked with movie stars as diverse as O. J. Simpson and Anna Nicole Smith. He has starred in over 15,000 television episodes, in addition to his prolific film career. When he walks down the hall, women fall to their knees. This man is Leslie Nielsen, who turned 81 today.

When asked about his unnaturally long life, Nielsen said, "Ah, you know, one day you're twenty-five and volunteering as a Boy Scout leader, the next you wake up and realize you're nearly sixty, and then you wake up again and you're past eighty. Where does the time go?"

Nielsen's acting career began shortly after World War II when he met a Civil War veteran who inspired him to quit his promising medical career and focus on acting. This man directed him to Jeanne Calment, the woman who would later become the "oldest. person. ever.", who was appearing in a documentary about old people at a local tv studio. When he arrived at the studio, Calment was already on the scene. Calment complimented Nielsen on his good looks. Nielsen would later return the favor and say that Calment was "the best-looking supercentenarian I'd ever seen."

His first major break occurred in 1956 when he played a captain in a sci-fi movie that was dated even back then. Comedy followed much, much later when he, in an ironic turn of events, played a doctor in a movie about an airplane whose passengers were going to die; critics found this to be in bad taste, but audiences couldn't get enough of him, shelling out money to see him in movie after movie after movie, each one a parody of pop culture and derided by the critics. 2001: A Space Travesty in particular is considered a war crime.

Nielsen's lengthy career, especially his late comedy turn, is surprising when one considers that he was expected to have died, or at least become hospitalized or bed-ridden, decades ago. It is a mystery how a man can continue to live as long as Nielsen has. There are stones that are younger than he is. Some of his best friends are Galapagos tortoises.

When asked whether he expected modern technologies such as the internet and the compact disc, Nielsen became frightened.

He regained his composure. "Well," said Nielsen, "some may say I'm too old, that I've lived too long a life. Should I be sorry that my life is an inconvenience to this youth-oriented culture? No! Damn those punks who won't stay off my lawn. I wanna keep on living. Where's my mush?" He then walked into a wall and broke his hip.