Dabney Coleman
1932-2024
Known for WarGames, Tootsie, You've Got Mail.
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).
Movie Credits
My Date with the President's Daughter (1998)
In the Line of Duty: Kidnapped (1995)
Short Time (1990)
Where the Heart Is (1990)
Pray TV (1980)
Exiled (1998)
Maybe Baby (1988)
The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)
Cloak & Dagger (1984)
WarGames (1983)
Recess: All Growed Down (2003)
The Climb (2002)
Giving It Up (1999)
Must Be Santa (1999)
Meet the Applegates (1990)
Hot to Trot (1988)
Callie & Son (1981)
Modern Problems (1981)
Clifford (1994)
Tootsie (1982)
Nine to Five (1980)
When She Was Bad... (1979)
Bad Ronald (1974)
The Dove (1974)
Target Earth (1998)
Amos & Andrew (1993)
On Golden Pond (1981)
Nothing Personal (1980)
Rolling Thunder (1977)
The Scalphunters (1968)
Still Working 9 to 5 (2022)
The Other Side of the Mountain (1975)
Dying Room Only (1973)
Where the Red Fern Grows (2003)
How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980)
Bite the Bullet (1975)
Downhill Racer (1969)
Hard Four (2007)
Recess: School's Out (2001)
Inspector Gadget (1999)
There Goes the Neighborhood (1992)
Dragnet (1987)
Cinderella Liberty (1973)
This Property Is Condemned (1966)
The Slender Thread (1965)
Rules Don't Apply (2016)
Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade (2003)
You've Got Mail (1998)
The Beverly Hillbillies (1993)
North Dallas Forty (1979)
Young Doctors in Love (1982)
Viva Knievel! (1977)
The Brotherhood of the Bell (1970)
The Trouble with Girls (1969)
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
Recess Christmas: Miracle On Third Street (2001)
Domino (2005)
Moonlight Mile (2002)
The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson (1990)
Lincoln (1992)
The Towering Inferno (1974)
Stuart Little (1999)
Midway (1976)
