Dabney Coleman
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 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). Description above from the Wikipedia article Dabney Coleman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
McKittrick
WarGames
Chief Quimby
Inspector Gadget
Gerald Ellis
Clifford
Cooper
The Man with One Red Shoe
John Kennedy
How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale
Grandpa
Where the Red Fern Grows
Maxwell
Rolling Thunder
Chief of Police Cecil Tolliver
Amos & Andrew
Mike Mulcahey
Moonlight Mile
Walter Sawyer
Hot to Trot
Senator Ben Arnold
Target Earth
Bill Ray
On Golden Pond
Rick Bessett
Dan August: The Jealousy Factor
McCallum
Maneaters Are Loose!
Burt Simpson
Short Time
Martin Price
The Muppets Take Manhattan
Jed
The Scalphunters
Judge Keith Hayes
Melvin and Howard
President George Richmond
My Date with the President's Daughter
Marvin Fleece
Pray TV
Nelson Fox
You've Got Mail
Mayo
Downhill Racer
Jack Parker
Bite the Bullet
Mack
The Climb
Ron Carlisle
Tootsie
Drake Bishop
Domino
Seymour Kecker
Devil's Food
Harrison Wilby
The Trouble with Girls
Joel
Un amour de sorcière
Mark Winslow
Modern Problems
Spray Loomis
Hard Four
Salesman
This Property is Condemned
Johnathan Gallant
Giving It Up
Dr. Joseph Prang
Young Doctors in Love
Stewart McBain
Where the Heart Is
Randall Bordeaux
Callie & Son
Jack Flack / Hal Osborne
Cloak & Dagger
Principal Peter Prickly (voice)
Recess: School's Out
Franklin M. Hart Jr.
Nine to Five
Principal Prickley (voice)
Recess: All Growed Down
Ralph Thompson
Viva Knievel!
Mr. Wood
Bad Ronald
Executive Officer
Cinderella Liberty
Dave McCoy
The Other Side of the Mountain
Bob Mitchell
Dying Room Only
Ted Seligson
Savage
William Cox
Never Forget
Charles Mayron
Judicial Consent
Himself
The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer
Ed Sigel
Guilty of Innocence: The Lenell Geter Story
George Bates
The Case of the Baltimore Girls
Al Stephenson
Returning Home
Dickerson
Nothing Personal
Self
Char·ac·ter
Frank Donnelly
I Love My Wife
Heineken
Black Fist
Milburn Drysdale
The Beverly Hillbillies
Jeffrey Babitt
There Goes the Neighborhood
Hal
Maybe Baby
Jack Heintzel
How to Beat the High Cost of Living
Emmett Hunter
North Dallas Forty
Jerry Caesar
Dragnet
Aunt Bea
Meet the Applegates
Martin Costigan
Sworn to Silence
Lieutenant Kevin Stolper
Exiled
Self
Night of 100 Stars II
Moving Target
Charles Huntley
The Dove
Arthur Milo
In the Line of Duty: Kidnapped
Principal Prickly (voice)
Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade
Paul Mathison
Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan
William Paley
Murrow
Raymond Holliday
Rules Don't Apply
Ethan Grover
Taken
Sen. Bert Haines
The President's Plane Is Missing
Deputy Chief #1
The Towering Inferno
Charlie
The Slender Thread
House of Evil
Dr. Beechwood
Stuart Little
Jesse Kiplinger
Plaza Suite
Must Be Santa
Jack Wilson
When She Was Bad...
Capt. Logan
Kiss Me, Kill Me
Agent Shepard
The Brotherhood of the Bell
Captain Murray Arnold
Midway
Joshua 'Josh' Harrington
More Than Friends
Stephen A. Douglas (voice)
Lincoln
Self
Still Working 9 to 5
Self
Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood
Self
The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
90
Gender
Male
Birthday
1932-01-03
Place of Birth
Austin, Texas, USA
Also Known As