Popular comic actor Dabney Coleman From 9 to 5, clairvoyance and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman Many of its redeeming qualities are dead, including its knack for portraying characters without one. He was 92 years old.
Coleman died Thursday at his home, his daughter, singer Quincy Coleman, said. The Hollywood Reporter.
“My father made his time here on Earth with a curious mind, a generous heart and a soul burning with passion, desire and humor that tickled humanity’s funny bone,” she said. “He lived and navigated the final moments of his life with grace, excellence and skill.
“A teacher, a hero, and a king, Dabney Coleman was a gift and a blessing in life and death. His spirit will forever shine through his work, his loved ones, and his legacy.”
The Emmy-winning actor also played an irritating talk show host from upstate New York on NBC. buffalo billHowever, its critical popularity lasted only 26 episodes.
Although he had at least three different problems headlining his own sitcom, ABC's Slap Maxwell's Storyfox's Drexel's Lessons and NBC's the people's madman It didn't make it past the first season before being cancelled.
More recently, the good-natured Coleman brought his signature mustache to the CBS drama as Burton Pauline, a law firm owner and the father of Simon Baker's character. tutelar; It was Commodore Louis Kaestner, HBO's Atlantic City powerbroker. Boardwalk Empire; He plays John Dutton Sr. (Kevin Costner's character's father). yellowstone.
Audiences got an early taste of Texas's nasty charm in 1976 when Coleman appeared as feisty Fernwood, Ohio, mayor Merle Jeeter in Norman Lear's late-night soap opera satire. Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
In an interview in 2012 AV clubColeman called the performance, which was scheduled to last only six performances, “a turning point in my career” and “probably the best thing I've ever done.”
Jeeter was “really great, a once-in-a-lifetime character,” he said. “He was the worst human being. … That's where it all started, people's belief that I could do comedy, especially when it came to that negative, caustic, cynical kind of guy. I was pretty good at that.”
Coleman proved this once again when he played the chauvinistic, backstabbing boss Franklin Hart Jr. in the workplace comedy. From 9 to 5, a 1980 exemplary women's liberation film starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton in her film debut. (For being such a rotten man, Hart ends up being shackled by his assistant, Parton's Doralee Rhodes.)
“They were all very grounded,” he said of his co-stars. “And here’s this guy. Mary Hartman, not too shabby. (laugh.) But it was late night TV. Anyway, what I'm implying is that all three of them made an effort to make me feel equal. “There is no other way to express it.”
Dabney Coleman and Dolly Parton in '9 to 5' in the 1980s.
Courtesy of 0th Century Fox Film Corporation/Everett Collection
in clairvoyance (1982), directed by his longtime friend and mentor Sydney Pollack, Colman played a sexist TV director who dates an actress (Jessica Lange) from his soap opera. southwestern general.
Years earlier, Pollack had been his teacher at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, and Coleman's first three films were also Pollack's first films as a director.
Coleman also played televangelist Marvin Fleece in the satire. prayer tv (1980), systems engineer overseeing John Badham's military mainframe WOPR; war games (1983) and the stingy banker Milburn Drysdale in the 1993 film version. Beverly Hillbillies.
questioner vulture In 2010, he responded: If he was proud of helping make television “safe for wayward protagonists,” he responded: “It's fun to play a role like that. In real life, you get to do strange things, things you want to do, but you don't do that because you're a civilized human being. There are no restrictions when you play. [jerks] — I couldn’t imagine anyone not liking playing that part.”
Dabney Wharton Coleman was born in Austin on January 3, 1932, the youngest of four children. After his father died of pneumonia when he was four, his mother raised the family in Corpus Christi, and Coleman went on to become an all-state junior tennis player.
He attended the Virginia Military Institute for two years (which many of his family attended), served in the U.S. Army Special Forces for two more years, then returned to Austin to study law at the University of Texas.
Mildred Pierce Actor Zachary Scott, a family friend of Coleman's first wife, Ann Harrell, was so convinced he could be an actor that he dropped out of college a semester before graduation and headed to Manhattan and Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse at age 26.
Coleman's first on-screen speaking appearance came in a 1961 episode of Naked City — He earned $90 for it — and he and his second wife, actress Jean Hale (Mad Hatter's glamorous shopping mall) baton), moved to Los Angeles in 1962.
Coleman has appeared in shows such as: ben casey, Kildare Dr., Alfred Hitchcock's Time, outer limit, hazel, i dream of genie and fugitive He appeared again in the first season (1966-67) as gynecologist Leon Bessemer, Marlo Thomas' neighbor. that girl.
he auditioned Gilligan's Island However, he lost the professor role to Russell Johnson.
In 1963, Coleman appeared in an episode of the ABC hospital drama. maximum Pollack conducted and the two reunited for the film. film (1965), This property is condemned (1966) – although his scenes were cut – and Scalpunters (1968).
“Then when I got out of school, I said, ‘I want to be in every movie you make,’” Coleman recalled. “He said, ‘Okay,’ and we got off to a pretty good start.”
in cinderella liberty (1973), he played his commanding officer alongside another former Neighborhood Playhouse cohort, James Caan.
Around that time, the blue-eyed Coleman decided to grow a mustache, which he said changed his career. “Without the mustache, I look a lot like Richard Nixon,” he said. vulture. “There’s no question that when I grew up, everything suddenly changed.”
The producers told him they would give him the role of Jeeter if he shaved his 'stash,' but he refused and they hired him anyway. He played the role of the mayor in episode 148. Mary Hartman Same with spinoffs Fernwood Tonight and forever fernwood.
From the Disney animated series recess And in that spinoff, Coleman provided the voice of Principal Peter Prickly.
Working with Fonda From 9 to 5 Leading him to one of his rare, unconventional roles. in the golden pond (1981).
As a frontrunner, Coleman was very entertaining. short time (1990), he played a police officer diagnosed with a terminal illness who discovers that he can only receive his pension if his daughter dies in the line of duty. His reckless determination to lose his temper and his disappointment at being consistently praised for his “bravery” are memorable.
Coleman also portrayed an over-the-top eccentric in: How to overcome the high cost of living (1980), a muttering pornographer. dragnet (1987) and Tacky Drag Queen Meet Applegate (1990).
His extensive credits include films. girls' problems (1969), downhill racer (1969), Towering Hellfire (1974), North Dallas Forty (1979), Melvin & Howard (1980), modern problems (1981), young doctors in love (1982), cloak and dagger (1984), The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), man with a pair of red shoes (1985), my neighbor is going (1992), Amos and Andrew (1993), Clifford (1994), devil's food (1996), you received the mail (1998), inspector gadget (1999), Stuart Little (1999), moonlight mile (2002), domino (2005) and Rule does not apply (2016).
Coleman won the 1987 Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work on the ABC television film. swear silence He was nominated twice for his role as Buffalo Bill Bittinger and once for his role as old-school sportswriter Slap Maxwell.
Whenever he wasn't working, Coleman could be found at Dan Tana's in West Hollywood, where a huge New York steak was named after him. “I think it has something to do with the fact that I’ve been ordering the damn thing five times a week for about 15 years,” he said. AV Club chatting.
Survivors include his other children, Randy and Kelly;
Duane Byrge contributed to this report.