Dabney Coleman, ‘9 to 5’ Star and ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Actor, Dies at 92
Actor Dabney Coleman, who played mean-spirited bosses, hilarious villains and jerks in movies like “9 to 5” and “Tootsie,” passed away at the age of 92.
In a statement released on Friday on the family’s behalf, Coleman’s daughter Quincy Coleman stated that her father “took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely” in his Santa Monica, California home on Thursday.
While Coleman is most known for his arrogant, unctuous, and uncaring characters, he said it was all an act. “It’s me kidding around,” Coleman once told the New York Times. “That’s just a guy that I’m playing, just to fool around, you know,” he said.
Coleman’s characters weren’t all bad guys. He earned an Emmy for his role as a lawyer in the 1987 television movie “Sworn to Silence,” as Jane Fonda’s decent dentist boyfriend in the 1981 movie “On Golden Pond,” and as a federal security officer in 1983’s War Games.
His first film role was in 1965’s “The Slender Thread,” helmed by his acting coach and friend Sydney Pollack, who subsequently hired him for “Tootsie.”
The actor’s breakthrough performance, which he described as his favourite, happened in 1976 on producer Norman Lear’s television sitcom “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.” He portrayed Merle Jeeter, the creepy mayor who had an affair with the main character, in the soap opera spoof and its spinoffs “Fernwood Tonight” and “Forever Fernwood.”
