Dabney Coleman, the Emmy-winning actor whose six-decade profession included a sterling run of Eighties hit motion pictures reminiscent of 9 to five, On Golden Pond, WarGames and Tootsie and whose TV work included ranged from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Buffalo Invoice to The Guardian and Boardwalk Empire has died, his daughter Quincy mentioned. He was 92.
“My Father, Dabney Wharton Coleman, took his final earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely at 92 in his Santa Monica residence on Thursday Could sixteenth, 2024 at 1:50pm,” Quincy Coleman wrote in a press release on behalf of the household. “My father crafted his time right here on earth with a curious thoughts, a beneficiant coronary heart, and a soul on fireplace with ardour, want and humor that tickled the humorous bone of humanity. As he lived, he moved by way of this ultimate act of his life with class, excellence and mastery. A instructor, a hero, and a king, Dabney Coleman is a present and blessing in life and in dying as his spirit will shine by way of his work, his family members and his legacy…eternally.
Coleman would amass six Primetime Emmy nominations throughout his profession, together with two for Lead Actor within the acclaimed however short-lived NBC sitcom Buffalo Invoice. He received for his supporting function within the 1987 telefilm Sworn to Silence. In his ultimate display screen function, Coleman performed the daddy of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton’s in a Yellowstone flashback throughout Season 2 in 2019. He additionally received a Golden Globe for his lead function in The Slap Maxwell Story and shared back-to-back SAG Awards for the Boardwalk Empire ensemble within the early 2010s. He acquired a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame in 2014.
Coleman’s lengthy and prolific profession started with appearances on such early-’60s TV staples as Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare and The Outer Limits. By means of the last decade and into the ’70s he continued to be solid on episodes of a few of TV’s hottest exhibits, with longer arcs on The Fugitive and That Lady.
His massive break got here with Norman Lear’s Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman in 1976, through which he recurred as Merle Jeeter in dozens of episodes, additionally showing on spinoffs Fernwood Tonight and Eternally Fernwood. The character was launched because the con-artist father of a kid evangelist and went on to develop into the sleazy mayor of the present’s setting, Fernwood, Ohio.
However it was within the early ’80s that Coleman Broke by way of with a collection of movie roles, starting with a small half in Jonathan Demme’s Melvin & Howard.
The actor then appeared in a collection of cultural touchstones. In 1980, he performed the egotistical, misogynistic boss Frank Hart in 9 to five, who made the lives of his feminine staff depressing. Amid the ladies’s motion, a recession and altering mores, the movie hit a nerve and made not simply Coleman a star however turbocharged the careers of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. The latter had a chart-topping single with the title tune.
Coleman appeared reverse Fonda and her father, Henry, the next yr in one other buzzy film, On Golden Pond. The movie received the elder Fonda and Katharine Hepburn Oscars alongside Ernest Thompson, who took Finest Writing (because it was then referred to as).
In 1982, Coleman was once more part of the zeitgeist enjoying what appeared a less-awful model of his 9 to five character in Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie. His Ron Carlisle was the sexist director of a well-liked cleaning soap opera on which Dustin Hoffman’s out-of-work actor character lands a much-needed function — disguised as a lady.
Coleman racked up greater than 175 movie and TV credit spanning 58 years. He topline a pair of sitcoms within the Eighties, enjoying a self-centered radio speak present host in two seasons of Buffalo Invoice after which egotistical newspaper sportswriter on ABC’s The Slap Maxwell Story, which lasted one season in 1987-88.
The Nineties noticed Coleman lead two extra sitcoms: Fox’s Drexell’s Class, enjoying the titular company raider-turned-grade faculty instructor for one season in 1991-92, and NBC’s Madman of the Individuals, this time enjoying {a magazine} columnist with old-school values. However it, too, would final just one season, in 1994-95.
Amongst his less-remembered TV roles was a humorous co-starring flip reverse Carol Burnett, Teri Garr, Charles Grodin and others within the 1986 CBS’ Fresno. Spoofed the then-widely well-liked primetime cleaning soap style and airing on the peak of the miniseries craze, it centered on the raisin wars of California’s Central Valley.
Together with daughter Quincy, Coleman is survived by his youngsters Meghan, Kelly and Randy and grandchildren Hale and Gabe Torrance, Luie Freundl, and Kai and Coleman Biancaniello.
Hale and Gabe Torrance, Luie Freundl, and Kai & Coleman Biancaniello.
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