Dabney Wharton Coleman is an American actor who is perhaps best known for roles in 9 to
5, Cloak & Dagger, Tootsie, WarGames, You've Got Mail, The Beverly Hillbillies and as the
voice of Principal Peter Prickly in Recess and Recess: School's Out.
Early life Coleman was born in Austin, Texas, the son
of Mary Wharton and Melvin Randolph Coleman.
He entered the Virginia Military Institute in 1949, then studied law at the University
of Texas before turning to acting.
He was drafted in 1953 to the U.S. Army and served in Europe.
Career Coleman is a character actor who has a wide
range, with over 60 films to his credit.
He trained with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater from 1958-60.
Early roles in his career included a US Olympic skiing team coach in the Robert Redford 1969
film Downhill Racer, a high-ranking superior San Francisco deputy fire chief to battalion
chief Steve McQueen in The Towering Inferno and a wealthy Westerner whose champion horse
is entered in a long-distance race against that of Gene Hackman and others in Bite the
Bullet.
He portrayed an FBI Special Agent in the NBC-TV movie Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku
Klux Klan.
He eventually landed the main antagonist part of Franklin Hart, Jr., a sexist boss on whom
three female office employees get their revenge in 1980's Nine to Five.
It was this film that established Coleman in the character type he is most identified
with and has frequently played since - a comic relief villain.
Coleman followed up Nine to Five with the role of the arrogant, sexist, soap opera director
in Tootsie, further enforcing audiences' identification of him as a smarmy, devious foil to a film's
main character.
He broke from this type somewhat, however, in his portrayal of military computer scientist
John McKittrick in WarGames.
Coleman received his first Emmy nomination for his lead role in the critically acclaimed,
though short-lived, TV series Buffalo Bill.
In 1987, he received an Emmy Award for his role in the TV movie Sworn to Silence.
He was featured in the feature film On Golden Pond, playing the fiance of Chelsea Thayer
Wayne.
Coleman played a Hugh Hefner-ish magazine mogul in the comedy Dragnet, Bobcat Goldthwait's
boss in the 1988 talking-horse comedy Hot to Trot, and befuddled banker Milburn Drysdale
in the feature film The Beverly Hillbillies.
Coleman played Gerald Ellis in Clifford, with Martin Short in the title role.
He also played a philandering father in You've Got Mail.
More recently, Coleman appeared as a casino owner in 2005's Domino.
He received acclaim as Burton Fallin in the TV series The Guardian.
For two seasons, from 2010 to 2011, Coleman was a series regular on HBO's hit series Boardwalk
Empire.
Personal life Coleman has been married twice.
He was married to Ann Courtney Harrell from 1957 to 1959 and to Jean Hale from 1961 to
1984.
He has four children: Meghan, Kelly, Randy, and Quincy.
He resides in the Brentwood district of Los Angeles.
In 1998, Coleman worked with fellow actor Bronson Pinchot at the Biltmore Estate in
Asheville, North Carolina, to help protect local forests and helped lead a campaign to
educate others of how to care for and protect forests nationwide.
Coleman has been an avid tennis player, playing for the US Army while posted in Europe, and
later playing in and winning some celebrity and charity tournaments.
Filmography Naked City
The Donna Reed Show The Slender Thread
This Property Is Condemned That Girl
Dundee and the Culhane The Fugitive
The Scalphunters The Trouble with Girls
Downhill Racer The Mod Squad
I Love My Wife The Brotherhood of the Bell
Cinderella Liberty Columbo: Double Shock
The Dove Bad Ronald
Kojak The Towering Inferno
Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan
Black Fist Bite the Bullet
The Other Side of the Mountain The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman Midway
Viva Knievel!
Rolling Thunder North Dallas Forty
Pray TV Nothing Personal
How to Beat the High Co$t of Living Melvin and Howard
9 to 5 On Golden Pond
Modern Problems Young Doctors in Love
Tootsie Buffalo Bill
WarGames Cloak & Dagger
The Muppets Take Manhattan The Man with One Red Shoe
Fresno Dragnet
Sworn to Silence The Slap Maxwell Story
Hot to Trot Where the Heart Is
Short Time Never Forget
Drexell's Class Meet the Applegates
Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star There Goes the Neighborhood
Amos & Andrew The Beverly Hillbillies
Judicial Consent Clifford
Madman of the People Witch Way Love
Exiled: A Law & Order Movie You've Got Mail
My Date with the President's Daughter Taken
Giving It Up Inspector Gadget
Stuart Little Recess: School's Out
The Guardian The Climb
Moonlight Mile Where the Red Fern Grows
Domino Heartland
Hard Four Law & Order: SVU
Boardwalk Empire Pound Puppies voice of the Mayor
References
External links Dabney Coleman at the Internet Movie Database
Dabney Coleman at the Internet Broadway Database