Goodbye, Leslie Nielson and John Steakley
I need to break away from the dating stuff for today as two of my favorite guys in the world both died yesterday and I feel the need to comment on them.
The first is the great Leslie Nielson, who passed away yesterday from pneumonia (Naked Gun image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). I’m sure this isn’t news for any of you, but I want to mention how much he meant to me personally. The Naked Gun was so much fun. It came out in 1988. At the time I was probably at my lowest point in my life, having dropped out of college and gotten a horrible, horrible job working graveyard shift at a medical lab, doing dangerous, mind killing work for a company that did not give a damn about me. Ever wonder how long it takes a gallon bottle of frozen urine to thaw out? I can answer that for you.
I used to go to work at 10:30pm and do overtime until about 11am. I would stumble home and was supposed to sleep until 6 or 7. However, my best friend at the time, Eric, would come over usually about 2 or 3pm. My mom would never let him wake me up so he learned to sneak around the house and tap on my bedroom window to wake me up. He was a manager at a local Edwards movie theater and we would inevitably go see a movie for free before I went to work. We saw pretty much every movie out, and let’s just say with a few exceptions it was not a great period in cinema. We saw a lot of crap.
One day we went the theater and the only thing playing that we hadn’t seen was something called the Naked Gun. I had never seen Police Squad and had no idea what it was about. I watched the movie and laughed so hard my stomach hurt. I was totally jazzed that night at hell job, and I think I watched it three more times over the next few weeks. To this day, the scene with Leslie and Richardo Montalban in the office with the pen and the exotic fish makes me laugh my ass off.
Leslie Nielson had this amazing combination of looking serious while delivering the most off the wall, insanely funny comments. He didn’t need to make weird faces or even be in particularly weird situations to make the scene funny as hell. I have been an avid fan ever since the Naked Gun and seen all his films before and since. I will miss him a lot.
The other passing was less well known. John Steakley was an author who wrote all of two novels, Armor and Vampire$. Vampire$ was about a team of mercenaries who would go around being paid to kill vampires. Good book, and was made into a mediocre movie starring James Woods. When you consider the fact that it was made by John Carpenter it actually really sucks. It was number 55 on a list of the top 70 vampire movies. Personally I think they took too much license with the script rewrite and should have stuck closer to the story, but that’s what I say about almost all movies that are derived from literature.
The other book, Armor, is considered a classic of military science fiction and that is for good reason. I don’t remember when I first read it, but when my literature well runs low I just pull it out and reread it again. It details the life of a truly messed up guy in a truly messed up war against giant ants. He runs around in a suit of power armor that is extremely cool. The story is amazing, the writing clean and very cool, and the characters engaging and interesting.
I have probably read that book twenty times, and to say it had an influence on my life is like saying the sun has an influence on the ecology of our planet. If you have never read it I highly recommend it. My love of science fiction started with Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (another book ruined by a bad movie) and was firmly cemented into place with this book.
Also, it seems I have a thing for powered suits of armor. It bugs me that we have advanced so much in asinine stuff like better ways of delivering porn but don’t have a powered suit of armor that I can use with jump boots to leap over a building.
Anyway, two guys who I like to consider a part of my life are gone, and the world is a sadder place for it. I will miss them both.
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The Engine November 29, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Nicely written Dave. It was a terrible loss to the world of two legendary talents.
Armor has been in my top two favorite books of all time since I first read it. Unlike most science fiction books I’d read prior, the war of good against evil took a backseat to survival in extreme conditions and the survior’s guilt left behind when Felix is the last man standing… every drop. I’ve worn out more copies than I can remember, every time the ending can be interpreted differently. To have written 2 books, one great, one masterpiece, that’s an enviable talent! May they never make a movie based on Armor. (btw: does my gamertag & email seem familiar to anyone that’s read the book?)
Leslie Nelson made anything funny, no matter how bad it was written or underbudgeted. Not enough to be said about how freaking funny his movies were, I can remember nearly peeing myself as he did the ‘miked’ peeing scene in Naked Gun. Now I’ve got to go. I’ve got a meeting in mensroom.