Peter Graves appeared in about a dozen or so films, including 1980's Airplane as Captain Clarence Oveur, the insane humor of which opened him up a whole new fan base.

(Yes, Captain Allright has seen the film “Airplane!” in which Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Peter Graves play two pilots whose names — Roger Murdock and Clarence Oveur — lead to “Who’s on ...

For instance, when actor Peter Graves initially read the "Airplane" script, he told the ZAZ trio that it was garbage, but was eventually convinced to play the memorable role of Captain Clarence Oveur.

When “Mission: Impossible” veteran Peter Graves, who eventually played the gladiator-loving Captain Oveur, first read the script, he thought it was so awful that he threw it across the room.

NPR's A Martinez talks to David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, the trio who wrote and directed Airplane!, about their new book Surely You Can't Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!