Dabney Coleman, a personality actor who introduced an excellent contact of smarm to the display in enjoying comedic villains, mean-spirited bosses and outright jerks in movies similar to “9 to 5” and “Tootsie,” has died at age 92.
Coleman “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica, California residence on Thursday, his daughter Quincy Coleman stated in a press release on Friday on behalf of the household.
While greatest remembered for his conceited, unctuous and uncaring characters, Coleman stated it was all an act.
“It’s me kidding around,” Coleman as soon as advised the New York Times. “That’s just a guy that I’m playing, just to fool around, you know.”
Not all of Coleman’s characters have been cads. He received an Emmy enjoying a lawyer within the 1987 tv film “Sworn to Silence” and performed Jane Fonda’s first rate dentist boyfriend within the 1981 movie “On Golden Pond” and a federal safety official in 1983’s “War Games.”
His remaining display credit score was enjoying John Dutton Sr within the TV sequence “Yellowstone” in 2019.
Coleman was born on Jan 3, 1932, in Austin, Texas. He studied legislation and served within the U.S. Army earlier than attempting performing.
His early work within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies included one-off roles in a wide range of tv reveals, in addition to a semi-regular half as Marlo Thomas’ neighbor in “That Girl.”
His first film job was 1965’s “The Slender Thread,” directed by his performing instructor and buddy, Sydney Pollack, who would later rent him for “Tootsie.”
Coleman’s breakout function – and the one he stated was his favourite – got here in 1976 on producer Norman Lear’s TV sequence “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.” He performed Merle Jeeter, the creepy mayor who has an affair with the title character, in that soap-opera spoof and in spinoffs “Fernwood Tonight” and “Forever Fernwood.”
His first massive film function – and the one which established his performing persona – was in 1980 as Franklin Hart, the sexist, egotistical enterprise government who harasses underlings performed by Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin till they take him hostage and enhance company productiveness in “9 to 5.”
Coleman was no extra likeable two years later in “Tootsie” as a cleaning soap opera director who runs afoul of Dustin Hoffman’s dressed-in-drag title character.
In 1983, he took the comedian villain function even additional in his first starring tv function. In the short-lived sitcom “Buffalo Bill,” he performed a radio discuss present host whose concept of a young marriage proposal was: “You’re better than 90 percent of those bimbos out there.”
“It is fun to play those characters because they are so well-defined,” Coleman advised People journal in 1983.
In the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, he additionally starred within the sitcoms “The Slap Maxwell Story” as a sportswriter, “Drexell’s Class” as a company raider turned instructor and “Madman of the People” as {a magazine} columnist working for his daughter. None of the reveals lasted greater than two seasons.
More latest roles included HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” in 2010-11 as the person who as soon as managed Atlantic City, New Jersey. His half needed to be rewritten when Coleman was recognized with throat most cancers, which left him unable to talk at instances.
A faithful tennis participant, Coleman was twice married and divorced. He had 4 youngsters along with his second spouse, actress Jean Hale.
“My father crafted his time here on earth with a curious mind, a generous heart, and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humor that tickled the funny bone of humanity,” the assertion from his daughter stated.
© Thomson Reuters 2024.