Dabney Coleman
87 movies · 74 TV shows
- Known for
- Acting
- Born
- Jan 3, 1932
- Died
- May 16, 2024 (age 92)
- Place of birth
- Austin, Texas, USA
- Also known as
- Dabney Wharton Coleman
Biography
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.
Read the full biography
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).
Profiles IMDb
Known for
Dabney Coleman: movies and TV shows
Acting (161)
- 2026 Dolly Parton: An American Original – Special Edition of 20/20
as Franklin M. Hart Jr (archive footage)
- 2018
- 2018
- 2016 Rules Don't Apply
as Raymond Holliday
- 2013
- 2010
- 2010
- 2007 Hard Four
as Spray Loomis
- 2007
- 2006
- 2005 Domino
as Drake Bishop
- 2003 Recess: All Growed Down
as Principal Prickley (voice)
- 2003 Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade
as Principal Prickly (voice)
- 2003
- 2003 Where the Red Fern Grows
as Grandpa
- 2002 Moonlight Mile
as Mike Mulcahey
- 2002 The Climb
as Mack
- 2001 Recess Christmas: Miracle On Third Street
as Principal Peter Prickly
- 2001
- 2001 Kiss My Act
as Henry
- 2001 Recess: School's Out
as Principal Peter Prickly (voice)
- 2001
- 2000 How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale
as John Kennedy
- 1999 Stuart Little
as Dr. Beechwood
- 1999
- 1999
- 1999 Inspector Gadget
as Chief Quimby
- 1999 Giving It Up
as Johnathan Gallant
- 1999 Taken
as Ethan Grover
- 1998 You've Got Mail
as Nelson Fox
- 1998 Exiled
as Lieutenant Kevin Stolper
- 1998 My Date with the President's Daughter
as George Richmond
- 1998 Target Earth
as Senator Ben Arnold
- 1997
- 1997 A Witch's Way of Love
as Joel
- 1996 Devil's Food
as Seymour Kecker
- 1996
- 1995 In the Line of Duty: Kidnapped
as Arthur Milo
- 1995
- 1994 Judicial Consent
as Charles Mayron
- 1994
- 1994
- 1994 Clifford
as Gerald Ellis
- 1993 The Beverly Hillbillies
as Milburn Drysdale
- 1993 Amos & Andrew
as Chief of Police Cecil Tolliver
- 1992 Lincoln
as Stephen A. Douglas (voice)
- 1992 There Goes the Neighborhood
as Jeffrey Babitt
- 1991
- 1991 Never Forget
as William Cox
- 1990 Meet the Applegates
as Aunt Bea
- 1990 Short Time
as Burt Simpson
- 1990 Where the Heart Is
as Stewart McBain
- 1988 Maybe Baby
as Hal
- 1988 Hot to Trot
as Walter Sawyer
- 1988
- 1987 Plaza Suite
as Jesse Kiplinger
- 1987
- 1987 Dragnet
as Jerry Caesar
- 1987 Sworn to Silence
as Martin Costigan
- 1987 Guilty of Innocence: The Lenell Geter Story
as Ed Sigel
- 1986
- 1986 The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer
as Dabney Coleman
- 1986 Murrow
as William Paley
- 1985 The Man with One Red Shoe
as Cooper
- 1984 The Muppets Take Manhattan
as Martin Price
- 1984 Cloak & Dagger
as Jack Flack / Hal Osborne
- 1983 WarGames
as McKittrick
- 1983
- 1982 Tootsie
as Ron Carlisle
- 1982 Young Doctors in Love
as Dr. Joseph Prang
- 1981 Modern Problems
as Mark Winslow
- 1981 On Golden Pond
as Bill Ray
- 1981 Callie & Son
as Randall Bordeaux
- 1980 Dan August: The Jealousy Factor
as Rick Bessett
- 1980 Nine to Five
as Franklin M. Hart Jr.
- 1980 Melvin and Howard
as Judge Keith Hayes
- 1980 How to Beat the High Cost of Living
as Jack Heintzel
- 1980 Pray TV
as Marvin Fleece
- 1980 Nothing Personal
as Dickerson
- 1979 When She Was Bad...
as Jack Wilson
- 1979 North Dallas Forty
as Emmett Hunter
- 1978
- 1978 More Than Friends
as Joshua 'Josh' Harrington
- 1978
- 1978 Maneaters Are Loose!
as McCallum
- 1978 The Case of the Baltimore Girls
as George Bates
- 1977 Rolling Thunder
as Maxwell
- 1977
- 1977
- 1977 Black Fist
as Heineken
- 1977 Viva Knievel!
as Ralph Thompson
- 1976
- 1976 Midway
as Captain Murray Arnold
- 1976 Kiss Me... Kill Me
as Capt. Logan
- 1976
- 1975 The Other Side of the Mountain
as Dave McCoy
- 1975 Bite the Bullet
as Jack Parker
- 1975
- 1975
- 1975 Returning Home
as Al Stephenson
- 1975
- 1974 The Towering Inferno
as Deputy Chief #1
- 1974 Bad Ronald
as Mr. Wood
- 1974
- 1974
- 1974
- 1974 The Dove
as Charles Huntley
- 1974
- 1973 Cinderella Liberty
as Executive Officer
- 1973
- 1973 The President's Plane Is Missing
as Sen. Bert Haines
- 1973 Dying Room Only
as Bob Mitchell
- 1973 Moving Target
as Morty Raskin
- 1973 Savage!
as Ted Seligson
- 1973
- 1973
- 1972
- 1972
- 1972
- 1971
- 1971
- 1971
- 1971
- 1970 I Love My Wife
as Frank Donnelly
- 1970
- 1970
- 1970 The Brotherhood of the Bell
as Agent Shepard
- 1970
- 1969 Downhill Racer
as Mayo
- 1969
- 1969
- 1969
- 1969
- 1969 The Trouble with Girls
as Harrison Wilby
- 1968
- 1968 The Scalphunters
as Jed
- 1967
- 1967
- 1967
- 1967
- 1967
- 1966
- 1966 This Property Is Condemned
as Salesman
- 1965 The Slender Thread
as Charlie
- 1965 The F.B.I. · TV
as Ira Barker / Allen Clarke / Stanley Leonard / Sam Langlin / Ty Williams / Mr. Jamison / Barnes · 7 episodes
- 1965
- 1965
- 1965
- 1964
- 1963
- 1963
- 1963 The Outer Limits · TV
as Dr. Williams / James Custer / Lt. Rupert Lawrence Howard (uncredited) · 3 episodes
- 1963
- 1962
- 1961
- 1961
- 1961
- 1961
- 1959
- 1958
- 1958
Talk shows and appearances (11)
- 2022
- 2012
- 2001
- 1990
- 1987
- 1985
- 1977 Fernwood 2 Night
2 episodes
- 1975 Saturday Night Live
1 episode
- 1963 Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
2 episodes
- 1962 The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
10 episodes
- 1944 Golden Globe Awards
2 episodes