Leslie Easterbrook is a well-known celebrity and actress. She also is a familiar face, especially for those who are fans of the Police Academy movies.
Fans of Police Academy would have a difficult time not remembering Leslie Easterbrook’s role as Sgt. Debbie Callahan in the movie. She was funny and beautiful and fit the role very well.
There are also many things that people don’t know about her, and that starts with her upbringing. She was born in Nebraska and was nine months old when she was adopted. Her adoptive father, a music professor, and her adoptive mother, an English teacher gave her a love of both music and education.
Her mother once said: “It was natural for us to share our love of music with Leslie. We thought she had a sweet voice, and of course, we encouraged her to join vocal groups, but it wasn’t until she went to college that we discovered what a remarkable voice she really has.”
At first, Leslie wanted to be an opera singer but later she seemed to want to settle into more of a normal life. That all changed when she appeared on the Laverne and Shirley sitcom in 1980, playing the role of Rhonda Lee. It wasn’t long before she was known for her acting skills.
Once, she said: “It was really an amazing experience that I finally got to be a part of the show, playing the Rhonda character. Just as I got the part, there was a SAG strike. Then when the strike was over, I got a call telling me I needed to audition again for the part I thought I had already gotten. It wasn’t until six auditions later that I finally got the part and was able to start working.”
It wasn’t until she was in the Police Academy movies that she became a well-known actress. She played a very confident character in her role, dominant in that part and she played it very well.
She said: “The funny thing is, that’s not me at all. I’d never played tough. I’d played all kinds of things, but I’d never played someone who’s intimidating or someone that was aggressive sexually. I was of a size that I never played the girl who got the guy. I wondered how I could do it. But I did. I went for the audition and I scared the producer and the director and then they backed up in their chairs and I went ‘Oh no, now I really blew it. I scared them.’ So I left the audition upset. I didn’t get to read the script until I got the part. I thought it was outrageous and so funny.”
Something that many people don’t know is that she worked very hard to stay in shape. She loved food, but she was an athlete who played volleyball and maintained her passion for running over the years.
She still had to get ready for her part in Police Academy, so she started doing martial arts classes to give her strength and to build her health.
Many people look at her as being only the star of Police Academy, but she actually appeared on television over 300 different times. This included in shows, such as Murder, She Wrote, Baywatch, Matlock, and The Dukes of Hazzard.
She also appeared in movies over the years, including The Devil’s Rejects and Private Resort.
In speaking about the horror genre, she said: “The horror genre intrigues me in many ways, but I am always amazed by the stressful nature of the entertainment. Much of it is grizzly and grinding, but when I meet the fans, they are the most cheerful and delightful people in the world. I meet their children, and their parents. They are good, law-abiding, regular, delightful people. My favorite theory is that they have found a venue to exorcise their demons — and are probably the healthiest folks around.”
When she played in the movie Private Resort, she became even more known as an 80’s sex symbol. She played Bobby Sue in the movie, a woman who gets entangled in the weekend antics of the young men who also play the movie.
Many people don’t know that she didn’t agree to show quite as much skin as she showed in the movie. Her contract stipulated that she would expose her backside but they talked her into wearing a nightgown that left little to the imagination.
She also has the ability to sing and she does quite well. In the 1980s, she sang the Star-Spangled Banner at a number of games for the California Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers. She then went on to appear and sing the national anthem at Super Bowl XVII in 1983.
At first, she sang at Angels games for free tickets but soon, she was connected with the right people for the Super Bowl anthem. Things didn’t go as smoothly as they should have, and she missed the game where the NFL Commissioner planned to hear her sing because of a fender bender.
She barely made it into the stadium, having to run across the parking lot in high heels carrying her dress. She was out of breath but managed to catch it just before singing.
On the set of Police Academy, she also had some issues. This includes having to learn how to shoot a shotgun, which stemmed from an accident during the video shoot.
She was asked to fire the starting pistol to signal the beginning of the foot race. The camera operator instructed her to hold the pistol close to her face. She didn’t know to wear ear protection and she shattered an eardrum.
That is when she realized that if she was going to handle a firearm in the movie again, she needed to understand how to use it. Despite having vision challenges, she mastered the shotgun after some intensive training.
She was married to screenwriter Dan Wilcox until he passed away in 2024. She was always pushing the boundaries during that time, doing what she had to do to get beyond Police Academy and to become someone who is still recognized for all of her amazing talent down to this day.