Dabney Coleman
Personal Info
Known for
Acting
Gender
Male
Birthday
1932-01-03
Day of Death
2024-05-16 (92 years old)
Place of Birth
Austin, Texas, USA
Dabney Coleman
Biography
Dabney Wharton Coleman 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).
Acting
(2022)
Still Working 9 to 5
as Self
(2016)
Rules Don't Apply
as Raymond Holliday
(2012)
Char·ac·ter
as Self
(2007)
Hard Four
as Spray Loomis
(2005)
Domino
as Drake Bishop
(2003)
Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade
as Principal Prickly (voice)
(2003)
Where the Red Fern Grows
as Grandpa
(2003)
Recess: All Growed Down
as Principal Prickley (voice)
(2002)
Moonlight Mile
as Mike Mulcahey
(2002)
The Climb
as Mack
(2001)
Recess: School's Out
as Principal Peter Prickly (voice)
(2000)
How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale
as John Kennedy
(1999)
Stuart Little
as Dr. Beechwood
(1999)
Inspector Gadget
as Chief Quimby
(1999)
Giving It Up
as Johnathan Gallant
(1999)
(1999)
Taken
as Ethan Grover
(1998)
You've Got Mail
as Nelson Fox
(1998)
My Date with the President's Daughter
as President George Richmond
(1998)
Target Earth
as Senator Ben Arnold
(1998)
Exiled
as Lieutenant Kevin Stolper
(1997)
A Witch's Way of Love
as Joel
(1996)
Devil's Food
as Seymour Kecker
(1995)
In the Line of Duty: Kidnapped
as Arthur Milo
(1994)
Clifford
as Gerald Ellis
(1994)
Judicial Consent
as Charles Mayron
(1993)
The Beverly Hillbillies
as Milburn Drysdale
(1993)
Amos & Andrew
as Chief of Police Cecil Tolliver
(1992)
Lincoln
as Stephen A. Douglas (voice)
(1992)
There Goes the Neighborhood
as Jeffrey Babitt
(1991)
Never Forget
as William Cox
(1990)
Short Time
as Burt Simpson
(1990)
Meet the Applegates
as Aunt Bea
(1990)
Where the Heart Is
as Stewart McBain
(1990)
(1988)
Hot to Trot
as Walter Sawyer
(1988)
Maybe Baby
as Hal
(1987)
Dragnet
as Jerry Caesar
(1987)
Guilty of Innocence: The Lenell Geter Story
as Ed Sigel
(1987)
Sworn to Silence
as Martin Costigan
(1987)
(1987)
Plaza Suite
as Jesse Kiplinger
(1986)
(1986)
Murrow
as William Paley
(1985)
The Man with One Red Shoe
as Cooper
(1985)
Night of 100 Stars II
as Self
(1984)
The Muppets Take Manhattan
as Martin Price
(1984)
Cloak & Dagger
as Jack Flack / Hal Osborne
(1983)
WarGames
as McKittrick
(1982)
Tootsie
as Ron Carlisle
(1982)
Young Doctors in Love
as Dr. Joseph Prang
(1981)
On Golden Pond
as Bill Ray
(1981)
Modern Problems
as Mark Winslow
(1981)
Callie & Son
as Randall Bordeaux
(1980)
Nine to Five
as Franklin M. Hart Jr.
(1980)
How to Beat the High Cost of Living
as Jack Heintzel
(1980)
Nothing Personal
as Dickerson
(1980)
Melvin and Howard
as Judge Keith Hayes
(1980)
Pray TV
as Marvin Fleece
(1980)
Dan August: The Jealousy Factor
as Rick Bessett
(1979)
North Dallas Forty
as Emmett Hunter
(1979)
When She Was Bad...
as Jack Wilson
(1978)
Maneaters Are Loose!
as McCallum
(1978)
The Case of the Baltimore Girls
as George Bates
(1978)
More Than Friends
as Joshua 'Josh' Harrington
(1977)
Rolling Thunder
as Maxwell
(1977)
Black Fist
as Heineken
(1977)
Viva Knievel!
as Ralph Thompson
(1976)
Midway
as Captain Murray Arnold
(1976)
Kiss Me, Kill Me
as Capt. Logan
(1975)
Bite the Bullet
as Jack Parker
(1975)
The Other Side of the Mountain
as Dave McCoy
(1975)
Returning Home
as Al Stephenson
(1975)
Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan
as Paul Mathison
(1974)
The Towering Inferno
as Deputy Chief #1
(1974)
Bad Ronald
as Mr. Wood
(1974)
The Dove
as Charles Huntley
(1974)
(1973)
Cinderella Liberty
as Executive Officer
(1973)
Savage
as Ted Seligson
(1973)
Dying Room Only
as Bob Mitchell
(1973)
The President's Plane Is Missing
as Sen. Bert Haines
(1973)
(1970)
The Brotherhood of the Bell
as Agent Shepard
(1970)
I Love My Wife
as Frank Donnelly
(1969)
Downhill Racer
as Mayo
(1969)
The Trouble with Girls
as Harrison Wilby
(1968)
The Scalphunters
as Jed
(1966)
This Property Is Condemned
as Salesman
(1965)
The Slender Thread
as Charlie