Dabney Coleman
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).
172 acting credits
Acting · 172
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
1999
NCIS
2003
Yellowstone
2018
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962
Columbo
1971
Saturday Night Live
1975
Mannix
1967
Bonanza
1959
The Love Boat
1977
Golden Globe Awards
1944
The Fugitive
1963
Ironside
1967
Quincy, M.E.
1976
Boardwalk Empire
2010
The Guardian
2001
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
1962
Ray Donovan
2013
Dr. Kildare
1961
Naked City
1958
Cannon
1971
Ben Casey
1961
The F.B.I.
1965
Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
1963
I Dream of Jeannie
1965
Medical Center
1969
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
1976
The Outer Limits
1963
Barnaby Jones
1973
Run for Your Life
1965
Kojak
1973
The Donna Reed Show
1958
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
1970
That Girl
1966
Recess
1997
Pound Puppies
2010
The Invaders
1967
The Streets of San Francisco
1972
Hazel
1961
Switch
1975
The Flying Nun
1967
Kraft Suspense Theatre
1963
Room 222
1969
Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child
1995
Midway
1976
The Mod Squad
1968
Judd, for the Defense
1967
Police Story
1973
McMillan & Wife
1971
Arrest and Trial
1963
For the People
2018
Petrocelli
1974
12 O'Clock High
1964
The Magic School Bus
1994
Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law
1971
Search
1972
Then Came Bronson
1969
The Bold Ones: The New Doctors
1969
The Zeta Project
2001
Nanny and the Professor
1970
The Manhunter
1974
Banyon
1972
Stuart Little
1999
Medical Story
1975
You've Got Mail
1998
Dan August
1970
Fernwood 2 Night
1977
WarGames
1983
The Beverly Hillbillies
1993
Madman of the People
1994
Heartland
2007
The Towering Inferno
1974
Please Don't Eat the Daisies
1965
Buffalo Bill
1983
Inspector Gadget
1999
Tootsie
1982
Kraft Mystery Theatre
1961
Fresno
1986
Forever Fernwood
1977
Domino
2005
Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade
2003
Dragnet
1987
On Golden Pond
1981
Nine to Five
1980
Recess: School's Out
2001
E! True Hollywood Story
1996
Drexell's Class
1991
The Man with One Red Shoe
1985
Rules Don't Apply
2016
Diff'rent Strokes
1978
Courting Alex
2006
Night of 100 Stars II
1985
Sons and Daughters
1974
Clifford
1994
The Muppets Take Manhattan
1984
Bite the Bullet
1975
Rolling Thunder
1977
Downhill Racer
1969
The Slap Maxwell Story
1987
Moonlight Mile
2002
Young Doctors in Love
1982
Exiled
1998
Where the Red Fern Grows
2003
My Date with the President's Daughter
1998
Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan
1975
Baby M
1988
Cloak & Dagger
1984
Apple Pie
1978
Bad Ronald
1974
This Property Is Condemned
1966
The Scalphunters
1968
Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood
1987
Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan
1975
The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer
1986
Recess: All Growed Down
2003
Amos & Andrew
1993
How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale
2000
The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson
1990
Savage
1973
Short Time
1990
Hot to Trot
1988
Recess Christmas: Miracle On Third Street
2001
Where the Heart Is
1990
Modern Problems
1981
There Goes the Neighborhood
1992
A Witch's Way of Love
1997
When She Was Bad...
1979
Lincoln
1992
Melvin and Howard
1980
How to Beat the High Cost of Living
1980
The Brotherhood of the Bell
1970
Giving It Up
1999
The Trouble with Girls
1969
The Slender Thread
1965
Target Earth
1998
Still Working 9 to 5
2022
The President's Plane Is Missing
1973
Guilty of Innocence: The Lenell Geter Story
1987
Hard Four
2007
In the Line of Duty: Kidnapped
1995
Maneaters Are Loose!
1978
Kiss Me... Kill Me
1976
North Dallas Forty
1979
Never Forget
1991
Judicial Consent
1994
Maybe Baby
1988
Cinderella Liberty
1973
More Than Friends
1978
Murrow
1986
Viva Knievel!
1977
I Love My Wife
1970
Meet the Applegates
1990
Pray TV
1980
Callie & Son
1981
The Other Side of the Mountain
1975
The Case of the Baltimore Girls
1978
The Climb
2002
The Dove
1974
Dying Room Only
1973
Char·ac·ter
2012
Nothing Personal
1980
Kiss My Act
2001
Must Be Santa
1999
Sworn to Silence
1987
Taken
1999
Dan August: The Jealousy Factor
1980
Black Fist
1977
House of Evil
1974
The Making of Midway
2001
Moving Target
1973
Devil's Food
1996
Returning Home
1975
Plaza Suite
1987