JD Lasica · CC BY-SA 2.0

A filmmaker who, with his brother David and partner Jim Abrahams, wrote and directed the anarchic spoof comedy Airplane! (1980) and co-created Police Squad!, the short-lived series that became The Naked Gun film franchise. He later directed Ghost (1990), a supernatural drama that became the top-grossing film of 1990, showing a range well beyond the parody genre that made his name.