‘Let 'er rip’: Leslie Nielsen's grave puts the dead in deadpan

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — In this tourist town, only one grave site gets five stars on Google. It belongs to Leslie Nielsen, and 16 years after his death it has become an affectionate shrine to the deadpan funnyman.

The Saskatchewan-born actor, who would have been 100 this year, is buried in Fort Lauderdale’s Evergreen Cemetery. A modest stone marks his final resting place, inscribed with his name, his dates of birth and death, and a fart joke.

“Let ‘er rip,” it says, giving life after death to his favourite running gag.

Piled onto the stone by fans on pilgrimage are multiple whoopie cushions, a fart machine and other novelty toys referencing his late-career roles as a deadpan straight man in some of the silliest movies of the ’80s and ’90s, including Airplane! and various Naked Guns.

He was as well-known for his TV talk show appearances — and for the fart machine he often brought along, inevitably breaking the host up (and only sometimes himself).

Born in Regina and raised in the Northwest Territories and Edmonton, Nielsen enjoyed an acting career in not-quite-leading-man dramatic roles in movies like Forbidden Planet and the Poseidon Adventure, but his legacy comes from his late career renaissance, weaponizing his deadly serious delivery for some of the silliest scenes ever put to film.

Perhaps the best-known such scene was from 1980s Airplane!. In a moment of airborne distress, Nielsen’s physician character asks the movie’s star, Robert Hays, if he can fly a plane.

“Surely you can’t be serious,” Hays, as Ted Striker, asks.

Says Nielsen, serious as a heart attack: “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”

Several Google reviews of the gravesite reference the scene. (“I haven’t been here yet but surely this must be a nice place to visit,” says one. “RIP Shirley,” says another.)

He maintained strong ties to Canada, where his brother Erik Nielsen was deputy prime minister under Brian Mulroney, but he spent his later years in Fort Lauderdale, and chose to be buried in a cemetery a stone’s throw from the palm-tree-lined Intercoastal Waterway.

Nielsen once said, “I’ll do anything for a laugh.” That didn’t stop at his 2010 death.

Across from the simple marker is a stone bench inscribed with “‘Sit down whenever you can’ — Leslie Nielsen,” which Atlas Obscura says was Nielsen’s standard advice for any actor or comedian seeking pearls of wisdom.

Several tattered birthday cards remain on the bench; he would have been 100 on Feb. 11.

“I DID NOT FART ON THIS CARD,” says one.

Another includes a written message: “Happy heavenly 100 th  birthday, Leslie. Break a leg and break wind. You can’t spell FART without ART.”

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