Jim Abrahams, the writer-director who helped create comedy classics reminiscent of “Airplane!,” the “Naked Gun” motion pictures, and the TV sequence “Police Squad!” has died. He was 80.
Abrahams handed away of pure causes on Tuesday at his residence in Santa Monica, Calif., his son Joseph Abrahams instructed the Hollywood Reporter.
Collectively along with his boyhood pals Jerry and David Zucker, Abrahams ushered in a brand new wave of zany Hollywood comedies starting with 1977’s sketch-comedy “Kentucky Fried Movie,” directed by John Landis, earlier than he helmed “Animal House.”
Certainly one of their hottest movies, “Airplane!” — on which all three shared writing and directing credit — hit theaters in 1980. A spoof of Nineteen Seventies catastrophe motion pictures, the movie starred Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and featured smaller however memorable performances from Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lorna Patterson.
The movie grossed $83 million worldwide on a price range of $3.5 million, not adjusted for inflation.
The trio — a ok a “ZAZ,” Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker — would proceed to work collectively all through the Eighties, partnering for “Top Secret!” (1984), “Ruthless People” (1986) and the “Top Gun” sendups “Hot Shots!” and “Hot Shots! Part Deux.”
Working in the identical vein as comedy legend Mel Brooks, Abrahams and the Zucker brothers had a knack for combining absurd conditions with deadpan writing.
Traces written by Abrahams and the Zuckers are nonetheless quoted by comedy followers to at the present time, maybe probably the most well-known of which hails from “Airplane!”:
“Surely, you can’t be serious.”
“I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley.”
“Airplane!” (1980)
ZAZ additionally spurred Leslie Nielsen’s rise to fame. The actor had been working in TV and movie for 3 many years and have become probably the most unlikely of Hollywood main males.
Nielsen starred within the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker TV present “Police Squad!,” the cop drama spoof that aired for just one season in 1982 however earned Abrahams and the Zuckers Emmy nominations. The sequence additionally launched the “Naked Gun” motion pictures.
The primary movie, launched in 1988, noticed Nielsen reprise his function as an LAPD detective and play reverse Priscilla Presley and O.J. Simpson. Nielsen and the writer-director trio went on to launch two sequels, “The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear” (1991) and once more “The Naked Gun 33⅓” (1994).
A “Naked Gun” reboot directed by Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer and starring Liam Neeson, who steps into Nielsen’s sneakers, is slated to reach in theaters August 2025.
Abrahams’ different notable credit embrace “Top Secret!” “Mafia!” and “Scary Movie 4.”
Along with his son Joseph, Abrahams is survived by his spouse of almost 50 years, Nancy Cocuzzo, his son Charlie, his daughter Jamie and three grandchildren.
The Submit has reached out to a rep for Abrahams.
