perhaps the most famous of which hails from “Airplane!”: “Surely, you can’t be serious.” “I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley.” ZAZ also spurred Leslie Nielsen’s rise to fame.

Leslie William Nielsen, OC (February 11 ... his deadpan delivery in Airplane! (1980) marked a turning point in his career, one that would make him, in the words of film critic Roger Ebert ...