Dabney Coleman
Acting
Born January 3, 1932 · Austin, 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).
Films (93)
Still Working 9 to 5
2022
Rules Don't Apply
2016
Char·ac·ter
2012
Hard Four
2007
Domino
2005
Recess: All Growed Down
2003
Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade
2003
Where the Red Fern Grows
2003
Moonlight Mile
2002
The Climb
2002
Recess Christmas: Miracle On Third Street
2001
The Making of Midway
2001
Kiss My Act
2001
Recess: School's Out
2001
How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale
2000
Stuart Little
1999
Must Be Santa
1999
Inspector Gadget
1999
Giving It Up
1999
Taken
1999
You've Got Mail
1998
Exiled
1998
My Date with the President's Daughter
1998
Target Earth
1998
A Witch's Way of Love
1997
Devil's Food
1996
In the Line of Duty: Kidnapped
1995
Judicial Consent
1994
Clifford
1994
The Beverly Hillbillies
1993
Amos & Andrew
1993
Lincoln
1992
There Goes the Neighborhood
1992
Never Forget
1991
The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson
1990
Meet the Applegates
1990
Short Time
1990
Where the Heart Is
1990
Maybe Baby
1988
Hot to Trot
1988
Plaza Suite
1987
Dragnet
1987
Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood
1987
Sworn to Silence
1987
Guilty of Innocence: The Lenell Geter Story
1987
The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer
1986
Murrow
1986
The Man with One Red Shoe
1985
Night of 100 Stars II
1985
The Muppets Take Manhattan
1984
Cloak & Dagger
1984
WarGames
1983
Tootsie
1982
Young Doctors in Love
1982
Modern Problems
1981
On Golden Pond
1981
Callie & Son
1981
Dan August: The Jealousy Factor
1980
Nine to Five
1980
Melvin and Howard
1980
How to Beat the High Cost of Living
1980
Pray TV
1980
Nothing Personal
1980
When She Was Bad...
1979
North Dallas Forty
1979
More Than Friends
1978
Maneaters Are Loose!
1978
The Case of the Baltimore Girls
1978
Rolling Thunder
1977
Black Fist
1977
Viva Knievel!
1977
Midway
1976
Kiss Me... Kill Me
1976
The Other Side of the Mountain
1975
Bite the Bullet
1975
Returning Home
1975
Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan
1975
The Towering Inferno
1974
Bad Ronald
1974
The Dove
1974
House of Evil
1974
Cinderella Liberty
1973
The President's Plane Is Missing
1973
Dying Room Only
1973
Moving Target
1973
Savage
1973
I Love My Wife
1970
The Brotherhood of the Bell
1970
Downhill Racer
1969
The Trouble with Girls
1969
The Scalphunters
1968
This Property Is Condemned
1966
The Slender Thread
1965