Dabney Coleman
Acting
- Born:
- 1932-01-03
- Died:
- 2024-05-16
- Place of birth:
- Austin, Texas, USA
Biography
Dabney Wharton Coleman (January 3, 1932 – May 16, 2024) was an American actor. Coleman's best known films include 9 to 5 (1980), On Golden Pond (1981), Tootsie (1982), WarGames (1983), Cloak & Dagger (1984), The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), You've Got Mail (1998), Inspector Gadget (1999), Recess: School's Out (2001), Moonlight Mile (2002), and Rules Don't Apply (2016). Coleman's television roles included the title characters of Buffalo Bill (1983–1984) and The Slap Maxwell Story (1987–1988), as well as Burton Fallin on The Guardian (2001–2004), the voice of Principal Peter Prickly on Recess (1997–2001), and Louis "The Commodore" Kaestner on Boardwalk Empire (2010–2011). He won one Primetime Emmy Award from six nominations and one Golden Globe Award from three nominations. Coleman was a character actor with roles in well over 60 films and television programs to his credit. He trained with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City from 1958 to 1960. Coleman made his Broadway debut in the short-lived A Call on Kuprin in 1961. In a 1964 episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre titled "The Threatening Eye", Coleman played private investigator William Gunther. Two years later, he played Dr. Leon Bessemer with Bonnie Scott as his wife Judy, neighbors and friends of the protagonist in Season 1 of That Girl, episode 3, "Never Change a Diaper on Opening Night". Noted for his moustache which he grew in 1973, he appeared in the sitcom wearing horn-rimmed glasses and with no facial hair. Other early roles in his career included a U.S. Olympic skiing team coach in Downhill Racer (1969), a high-ranking fire chief in The Towering Inferno (1974), and a wealthy Westerner in Bite the Bullet (1975). He portrayed an FBI agent in Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan (1975).
Known For
Filmography
Dolly Parton: An American Original – Special Edition of 20/20
Still Working 9 to 5
Yellowstone
For the People
Rules Don't Apply
Ray Donovan
Char·ac·ter
Pound Puppies
Boardwalk Empire
Hard Four
Heartland
Courting Alex
Domino
Recess: All Growed Down
Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade
NCIS
Where the Red Fern Grows
Moonlight Mile
The Climb
Recess Christmas: Miracle On Third Street
The Making of Midway
The Guardian
Kiss My Act
Recess: School's Out
The Zeta Project
How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale
Stuart Little
Must Be Santa
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Inspector Gadget
Giving It Up
Taken
You've Got Mail
Exiled
My Date with the President's Daughter
Target Earth
Recess
A Witch's Way of Love
Devil's Food
E! True Hollywood Story
In the Line of Duty: Kidnapped
Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child
Judicial Consent
Madman of the People
The Magic School Bus
Clifford
The Beverly Hillbillies
Amos & Andrew
Lincoln
There Goes the Neighborhood
Drexell's Class
Never Forget
The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson
Meet the Applegates
Short Time
Where the Heart Is
Maybe Baby
Hot to Trot
Baby M
Plaza Suite
The Slap Maxwell Story
Dragnet
Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood
Sworn to Silence
Guilty of Innocence: The Lenell Geter Story
Fresno
The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer
Murrow
The Man with One Red Shoe
Night of 100 Stars II
The Muppets Take Manhattan
Cloak & Dagger
WarGames
Buffalo Bill
Tootsie
Young Doctors in Love
Modern Problems
On Golden Pond
Callie & Son
Dan August: The Jealousy Factor
Nine to Five
Melvin and Howard
How to Beat the High Cost of Living
Pray TV
Nothing Personal
When She Was Bad...
North Dallas Forty
Diff'rent Strokes
More Than Friends
Apple Pie
Maneaters Are Loose!
The Case of the Baltimore Girls
Rolling Thunder
Forever Fernwood
The Love Boat
Black Fist
Fernwood 2 Night
Viva Knievel!
Quincy, M.E.
Midway
Kiss Me... Kill Me
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
The Other Side of the Mountain
Saturday Night Live
Bite the Bullet
Switch
Medical Story
Returning Home
Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan
The Towering Inferno
Bad Ronald
Sons and Daughters
The Manhunter
Petrocelli
The Dove
House of Evil
Cinderella Liberty
Kojak
The President's Plane Is Missing
Dying Room Only
Moving Target
Savage!
Police Story
Barnaby Jones
The Streets of San Francisco
Banyon
Search
McMillan & Wife
Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law
Columbo
Cannon
I Love My Wife
Dan August
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Brotherhood of the Bell
Nanny and the Professor
Downhill Racer
Medical Center
Then Came Bronson
The Bold Ones: The New Doctors
Room 222
The Trouble with Girls
The Mod Squad
The Scalphunters
Mannix
Judd, for the Defense
The Flying Nun
Ironside
The Invaders
That Girl
This Property Is Condemned
The Slender Thread
The F.B.I.
I Dream of Jeannie
Please Don't Eat the Daisies
Run for Your Life
12 O'Clock High
Kraft Suspense Theatre
Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
The Fugitive
The Outer Limits
Arrest and Trial
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Ben Casey
Hazel
Dr. Kildare
Kraft Mystery Theatre
Bonanza
Naked City
The Donna Reed Show
Golden Globe Awards