Legendary Hollywood director famous for Airplane! and Naked Gun - Jim Abrahams - dies at 80

The legendary writer/director, Jim Abrahams, has died at the age of 80, his family has confirmed. He will live on through his hugely popular comedies including Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and Police Squad,

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Abrahams’ son, Joseph, said his father passed away of natural causes at his home in Santa Monica earlier today.

Born in 1944 to a Jewish family in Wisconsin, the comedy movie ace often co-wrote and produced with brothers Jerry Zucker and David Zucker, with the trio (Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker) being referred to as "ZAZ". The three men became giants in the funny film genre - in fact, if an 80s movie positively groans with great sight gags, quotable lines and moments of inspired silliness, it has most likely come from the ZAZ team.

While the success of movies, including disaster movie spoof, Airplane!, is often attributed to the acting skills of the wonderfully deadpan cast including the brilliant Leslie Nielsen, it was ‘ZAZ’ who should take the lion’s share of the credit for coming up with oft-repeated lines such as “I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley”.

As well as writing and directing 90s classics, Hot Shots! and its sequel, Hot Shots! Part Deux, Abrahams’ most recent work came in 2006 when he was a writer on the comedy-horror, Scary Movie 4.

Abrahams and his wife, Nancy (née Cocuzzo) co-founded The Charlie Foundation to help cure pediatric epilepsy after, in 1993, their 11-month-old son Charlie, developed a difficult to control form of the condition. While Charlie was experiencing multiple daily seizures and multiple daily medications, his parents turned to a ketogenic diet for help, and it worked, so they set up the foundation to provide information about diet therapies for people with epilepsy, other neurological disorders and select cancers.

Jim is survived by his wife Nancy, and his three children, sons Joseph and Charlie and daughter, Jamie, who is also a comedy writer.