Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen, best known for movie comedies like Airplane! and the Naked Gun film franchise, enjoyed a long career in front of the camera by delivering lines with dead-pan precision.

It was left to his movie audiences to grin.

Now those same audiences are tipping their hat to Nielsen after he died Sunday in Florida due to complications from pneumonia, aged 84 years.

“We are sadden by the passing of beloved actor Leslie Nielsen, probably best remembered as Lt. Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun series of pictures, but who enjoyed a more than 60-year career in motion pictures and television,” the Nielsen family said a statement.

The Canadian comedy icon was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and received the Order of Canada in December 2003.

That followed an early career in radio, then acting in over 100 movies after Nielsen appeared in a slew of live TV dramas in New York City during the 1950s before shifting to Hollywood and signing a studio contract with MGM.

He also had extensive U.S. TV credits, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Hawaii Five- O, Columbo and Murder, She Wrote.

After the dramas came the comedy once Nielsen secured overnight stardom yet again by playing a hapless doctor in the 1980s’ Airplane!, a parody of Airport and other flight-themed movies.

Nielsen also did a key star turn in the 2002 Canadian comedy movie Men With Brooms opposite Paul Gross.

The veteran thesp also received a 2003 Award of Excellence from ACTRA, voted on by his peers.

Photo: Jerry Angelica.