Dabney Coleman, who starred in “9 to five” and “Tootsie,” seems in Los Angeles on Nov. 14, 1988. The actor died Thursday at his dwelling in Santa Monica, Calif. Nick Ut/AP cover caption
toggle caption
Nick Ut/AP
Dabney Coleman, who starred in “9 to five” and “Tootsie,” seems in Los Angeles on Nov. 14, 1988. The actor died Thursday at his dwelling in Santa Monica, Calif.
Nick Ut/AP
NEW YORK — Dabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialised in smarmy villains just like the chauvinist boss in “9 to five” and the nasty TV director in “Tootsie,” has died. He was 92.
Coleman died Thursday at his dwelling in Santa Monica, his daughter, Quincy Coleman, stated in an announcement to The Related Press. She stated he “took his final earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely.”
“The nice Dabney Coleman actually created, or outlined, actually — in a uniquely singular method — an archetype as a personality actor. He was so good at what he did it is laborious to think about films and tv of the final 40 years with out him,” Ben Stiller wrote on X.
For 20 years Coleman labored in films and TV reveals as a proficient however largely unnoticed performer. That modified abruptly in 1976 when he was forged because the incorrigibly corrupt mayor of the hamlet of Fernwood in “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” a satirical cleaning soap opera that was so excessive no community would contact it.
Producer Norman Lear lastly managed to syndicate the present, which starred Louise Lasser within the title function. It rapidly grew to become a cult favourite. Coleman’s character, Mayor Merle Jeeter, was particularly well-liked and his masterful, comedian deadpan supply didn’t go neglected by movie and community executives.
A six-footer with an ample black mustache, Coleman went on to make his mark in quite a few well-liked movies, together with as a wired laptop scientist in “Battle Video games,” Tom Hanks’ father in “You have Bought Mail” and a hearth combating official in “The Towering Inferno.”
He gained a Golden Globe for “The Slap Maxwell Story” and an Emmy Award for greatest supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 small display authorized drama “Sworn to Silence.” A few of his current credit embrace “Ray Donovan” and a recurring function on “Boardwalk Empire,” for which he gained two Display Actors Guild Awards.
Within the groundbreaking 1980 hit “9 to five,” he was the “sexist, egotistical, mendacity, hypocritical bigot” boss who tormented his unappreciated feminine underlings — Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton — till they turned the tables on him.
In 1981, he was Fonda’s caring, well-mannered boyfriend, who asks her father (performed by her real-life father, Henry Fonda) if he can sleep together with her throughout a go to to her mother and father’ trip dwelling in “On Golden Pond.”
Reverse Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie,” he was the obnoxious director of a daytime cleaning soap opera that Hoffman’s character joins by pretending to be a girl. Amongst Coleman’s different movies have been “North Dallas Forty,” “Cloak and Dagger,” “Dragnet,” “Meet the Applegates,” “Inspector Gadget” and “Stuart Little.” He reunited with Hoffman as a land developer in Brad Silberling’s “Moonlight Mile” with Jake Gyllenhaal.
Coleman’s obnoxious characters did not translate fairly as effectively on tv, the place he starred in a handful of community comedies. Though some grew to become cult favorites, just one lasted longer than two seasons, and a few critics questioned whether or not a collection starring a lead character with completely no redeeming qualities might entice a mass viewers.
“Buffalo Invoice” (1983-84) was instance. It starred Coleman as “Buffalo Invoice” Bittinger, the smarmy, smug, dimwitted daytime discuss present host who, sad at being relegated to the small-time market of Buffalo, New York, takes it out on everybody round him. Though neatly written and that includes a high quality ensemble forged, it lasted solely two seasons.
One other was 1987’s “The Slap Maxwell Story,” through which Coleman was a failed small-town sportswriter attempting to save lots of a faltering marriage whereas wooing a gorgeous younger reporter on the aspect.
Different failed makes an attempt to discover a mass TV viewers included “Apple Pie,” “Drexell’s Class” (through which he performed an inside dealer) and “Madman of the Individuals,” one other newspaper present through which he clashed this time along with his youthful boss, who was additionally his daughter.
He fared higher in a co-starring function in “The Guardian” (2001-2004), which had him taking part in the daddy of a crooked lawyer. And he loved the voice function as Principal Prickly on the Disney animated collection “Recess” from 1997-2003.
Beneath all that bravura was a reserved man. Coleman insisted he was actually fairly shy. “I have been shy all my life. Possibly it stems from being the final of 4 youngsters, all of them very good-looking, together with a brother who was Tyrone Energy-handsome. Possibly it is as a result of my father died after I was 4,” he informed The Related Press in 1984. “I used to be extraordinarily small, just a bit man who was there, the child who created no hassle. I used to be interested in fantasy, and I created video games for myself.”
As he aged, he additionally started to place his mark on pompous authority figures, notably in 1998’s “My Date With the President’s Daughter,” through which he was not solely an egotistical, self-absorbed president of the USA, but in addition a clueless father to an adolescent lady.
Dabney Coleman — his actual title — was born in 1932 in Austin, Texas After two years on the Virginia Army Academy, two on the College of Texas and two within the Military, he was a 26-year-old regulation scholar when he met one other Austin native, Zachry Scott, who starred in “Mildred Pierce” and different movies.
“He was probably the most dynamic particular person I’ve ever met. He satisfied me I ought to turn out to be an actor, and I actually left the subsequent day to review in New York. He did not assume that was too sensible, however I made my choice,” Coleman informed The AP in 1984.
Early credit included such TV reveals as “Ben Casey,” “Dr Kildare,” “The Outer Limits,” “Bonanza,” “The Mod Squad” and the movie “The Towering Inferno.” He appeared on Broadway in 1961 in “A Name on Kuprin.” He performed Kevin Costner’s father on “Yellowstone.”
Twice divorced, Coleman is survived by 4 youngsters, Meghan, Kelly, Randy and Quincy, and the grandchildren Hale and Gabe Torrance, Luie Freundl and Kai and Coleman Biancaniello.
“My father crafted his time right here on earth with a curious thoughts, a beneficiant coronary heart, and a soul on fireplace with ardour, need and humor that tickled the humorous bone of humanity,” Quincy Coleman wrote in his honor.
