Dabney Coleman

Known for ActingBorn 1932-01-03Died 2024-05-16Austin, Texas, USA

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).Read more

Movies & web series

Still Working 9 to 5

Maneaters Are Loose!

More Than Friends

The Making of Midway

Sons and Daughters

Yellowstone

Boardwalk Empire

E! True Hollywood Story

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Arrest and Trial

Plaza Suite

Night of 100 Stars II

Columbo

Banyon

Recess

NCIS

Ray Donovan

The Magic School Bus

The Zeta Project

I Dream of Jeannie

For the People

The Outer Limits

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

Judd, for the Defense

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Apple Pie

Quincy, M.E.

Lincoln

Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan

House of Evil

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

Bonanza

On Golden Pond

Tootsie

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

The Guardian

Petrocelli

Devil's Food

The Fugitive

Kojak

WarGames

Baby M

12 O'Clock High

My Date with the President's Daughter

Sworn to Silence

Diff'rent Strokes

Dan August

Kraft Mystery Theatre