Dabney Coleman
Photoplayd Industry Rating
Not enough rated films yet to compute a weighted score.
Roles are weighted by involvement: director 1.0, screenwriter 0.7, lead 0.8, supporting 0.4, crew 0.1.
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. 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).
Known for
Credits
You've Got Mail (1998)
as Nelson Fox
Stuart Little (1999)
as Dr. Beechwood
WarGames (1983)
as McKittrick
Nine to Five (1980)
as Franklin M. Hart Jr.
Midway (1976)
as Captain Murray Arnold
The Towering Inferno (1974)
as Deputy Chief #1
Rules Don't Apply (2016)
as Raymond Holliday
The Beverly Hillbillies (1993)
as Milburn Drysdale
Inspector Gadget (1999)
as Chief Quimby
Domino (2005)
as Drake Bishop
Recess: School's Out (2001)
as Principal Peter Prickly (voice)
The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)
as Cooper
Tootsie (1982)
as Ron Carlisle
Amos & Andrew (1993)
as Chief of Police Cecil Tolliver
The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
as Martin Price
On Golden Pond (1981)
as Bill Ray
Dragnet (1987)
as Jerry Caesar
Dolly Parton: An American Original – Special Edition of 20/20 (2026)
as Franklin M. Hart Jr (archive footage)
Young Doctors in Love (1982)
as Dr. Joseph Prang
Cloak & Dagger (1984)
as Jack Flack / Hal Osborne
Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade (2003)
as Principal Prickly (voice)
The Scalphunters (1968)
as Jed
Recess: All Growed Down (2003)
as Principal Prickley (voice)
Moonlight Mile (2002)
as Mike Mulcahey
Where the Red Fern Grows (2003)
as Grandpa
This Property Is Condemned (1966)
as Salesman
Recess Christmas: Miracle On Third Street (2001)
as Principal Peter Prickly
Still Working 9 to 5 (2022)
as Self
Bite the Bullet (1975)
as Jack Parker
The Trouble with Girls (1969)
as Harrison Wilby
Rolling Thunder (1977)
as Maxwell
My Date with the President's Daughter (1998)
as George Richmond
How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980)
as Jack Heintzel
Where the Heart Is (1990)
as Stewart McBain
There Goes the Neighborhood (1992)
as Jeffrey Babitt
Downhill Racer (1969)
as Mayo
Short Time (1990)
as Burt Simpson
Night of 100 Stars II (1985)
as Self
The President's Plane Is Missing (1973)
as Sen. Bert Haines
The Brotherhood of the Bell (1970)
as Agent Shepard
Clifford (1994)
as Gerald Ellis
North Dallas Forty (1979)
as Emmett Hunter
The Slender Thread (1965)
as Charlie
Meet the Applegates (1990)
as Aunt Bea
The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson (1990)
as Self
A Witch's Way of Love (1997)
as Joel
In the Line of Duty: Kidnapped (1995)
as Arthur Milo
The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1986)
as Dabney Coleman
When She Was Bad... (1979)
as Jack Wilson
Hot to Trot (1988)
as Walter Sawyer
The Other Side of the Mountain (1975)
as Dave McCoy
Exiled (1998)
as Lieutenant Kevin Stolper
Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood (1987)
as Self
Modern Problems (1981)
as Mark Winslow
Plaza Suite (1987)
as Jesse Kiplinger
Bad Ronald (1974)
as Mr. Wood
I Love My Wife (1970)
as Frank Donnelly
Giving It Up (1999)
as Johnathan Gallant
How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale (2000)
as John Kennedy
The Case of the Baltimore Girls (1978)
as George Bates
Nothing Personal (1980)
as Dickerson
Melvin and Howard (1980)
as Judge Keith Hayes
Char·ac·ter (2012)
as Self
Target Earth (1998)
as Senator Ben Arnold
Pray TV (1980)
as Marvin Fleece
The Making of Midway (2001)
as Self (archive footage)
Kiss Me... Kill Me (1976)
as Capt. Logan
Dan August: The Jealousy Factor (1980)
as Rick Bessett
Maybe Baby (1988)
as Hal
Callie & Son (1981)
as Randall Bordeaux
The Dove (1974)
as Charles Huntley
Dying Room Only (1973)
as Bob Mitchell
Cinderella Liberty (1973)
as Executive Officer
Guilty of Innocence: The Lenell Geter Story (1987)
as Ed Sigel
Judicial Consent (1994)
as Charles Mayron
Black Fist (1977)
as Heineken
Maneaters Are Loose! (1978)
as McCallum
Moving Target (1973)
as Morty Raskin
Kiss My Act (2001)
as Henry
Never Forget (1991)
as William Cox
Lincoln (1992)
as Stephen A. Douglas (voice)
Savage (1973)
as Ted Seligson
Hard Four (2007)
as Spray Loomis
Devil's Food (1996)
as Seymour Kecker
More Than Friends (1978)
as Joshua 'Josh' Harrington
Must Be Santa (1999)
Actor
Sworn to Silence (1987)
as Martin Costigan
Viva Knievel! (1977)
as Ralph Thompson
House of Evil (1974)
Actor
Murrow (1986)
as William Paley
The Climb (2002)
as Mack
Returning Home (1975)
as Al Stephenson
Taken (1999)
as Ethan Grover