Dabney Coleman

Acting · 2.2 popularity

Age

Movies

Born: January 3, 1932 – May 16, 2024
From: 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).

Works

93 films

You've Got Mail

19986.7

Stuart Little

19996.1

WarGames

19837.1

The Towering Inferno

19747.0

Midway

19766.6

Inspector Gadget

19994.5

The Beverly Hillbillies

19936.3

Tootsie

19827.2

Recess: School's Out

20016.6

Nine to Five

19806.9

On Golden Pond

19817.3

The Muppets Take Manhattan

19846.6

Domino

20055.9

The Man with One Red Shoe

19855.7

Dragnet

19876.0

Downhill Racer

19695.9

Amos & Andrew

19935.5

Rules Don't Apply

20165.8

Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade

20036.6

Moonlight Mile

20026.3

Rolling Thunder

19776.8

This Property Is Condemned

19666.5

Where the Red Fern Grows

20036.4

Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood

19876.0

Hot to Trot

19885.2

Bite the Bullet

19756.4

Short Time

19906.5

Recess: All Growed Down

20036.5

Cloak & Dagger

19846.4

Young Doctors in Love

19825.3

Night of 100 Stars II

19856.8

Clifford

19945.1

The Scalphunters

19686.4

The Trouble with Girls

19694.9

Recess Christmas: Miracle On Third Street

20016.3

Where the Heart Is

19906.2

Melvin and Howard

19806.5

There Goes the Neighborhood

19925.5

The Dove

19746.7

The Slender Thread

19657.1

North Dallas Forty

19796.7

The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson

19906.8

The Other Side of the Mountain

19756.3

When She Was Bad...

19795.0

Modern Problems

19815.4

The President's Plane Is Missing

19736.3

Exiled

19985.9

How to Beat the High Cost of Living

19805.2

I Love My Wife

19703.5

Moving Target

1973

A Witch's Way of Love

19975.2

Bad Ronald

19746.4

Giving It Up

19994.2

My Date with the President's Daughter

19986.9

Target Earth

19984.4

Cinderella Liberty

19736.7

Pray TV

19805.5

Kiss My Act

20016.0

Plaza Suite

19878.0

Char·ac·ter

20124.0

In the Line of Duty: Kidnapped

19955.3

The Brotherhood of the Bell

19706.0

Dying Room Only

19736.6

Lincoln

19927.3

Nothing Personal

19805.6

Meet the Applegates

19905.6

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

19757.5

Black Fist

19774.4

The Case of the Baltimore Girls

1978

Maybe Baby

19885.0

Callie & Son

19816.8

More Than Friends

197810.0

Guilty of Innocence: The Lenell Geter Story

19876.5

Judicial Consent

19945.6

Maneaters Are Loose!

197810.0

Savage!

19735.5

House of Evil

19747.5

Dan August: The Jealousy Factor

19802.0

Sworn to Silence

19877.0

Hard Four

20074.9

Viva Knievel!

19774.0

Devil's Food

19967.0

Kiss Me... Kill Me

19766.8

The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer

19866.3

The Climb

20026.1

Still Working 9 to 5

202210.0

The Making of Midway

20019.0

How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale

20004.0

Murrow

19865.5

Never Forget

19915.0

Returning Home

19756.5

Must Be Santa

19993.5

Taken

19995.0