Dabney Coleman Dies: ‘Tootsie,’ ‘9 To 5’ & ‘Buffalo Bill’ Actor Was 92

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Dabney Coleman, the prolific Emmy-winning actor whose six-decade career included a sterling run of 1980s hit movies such as 9 to 5, On Golden Pond, WarGames and Tootsie and whose TV work included ranged from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Buffalo Bill to The Guardian and Boardwalk Empire has died, according to TMZ. He was 92.

Coleman’s career began with appearances on such early-’60s TV staples as Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare and The Outer Limits. Through the decade and into the ’70s he continued to be cast on episodes of some of TV’s most popular shows, with longer arcs on The Fugitive and That Girl.

He went on to amass six Primetime Emmy nominations, including two for Lead Actor in the acclaimed but short-lived NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill. He won for his supporting role in the 1987 telefilm Sworn to Silence. In his final screen role, Coleman played the father of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton’s in a Yellowstone flashback during Season 2 in 2019.

His big break came with Norman Lear’s Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman in 1976, in which he recurred as Merle Jeeter in dozens of episodes, also appearing on spinoffs Fernwood Tonight and Forever Fernwood. The character was introduced as the con-artist father of a child evangelist and went on to become the sleazy mayor of the show’s setting, Fernwood, Ohio.

But it was in the early ’80s that Coleman Broke through with a series of film roles, beginning with a small part in Jonathan Demme’s Melvin & Howard.

The actor then appeared in a series of cultural touchstones. In 1980, he played the egotistical, misogynistic boss Frank Hart in 9 to 5, who made the lives of his female employees miserable. Amid the women’s movement, a recession and changing mores, the film hit a nerve and made not just Coleman a star but turbocharged the careers of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. The latter had a chart-topping single with the title song.

Coleman appeared opposite Fonda and her father, Henry, the following year in another buzzy movie, On Golden Pond. The film won the elder Fonda and Katharine Hepburn Oscars alongside Ernest Thompson, who took Best Writing (as it was then called).

In 1982, Coleman was again a part of the zeitgeist playing what seemed a less-awful version of his 9 to 5 character in Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie. His Ron Carlisle was the sexist director of a popular soap opera on which Dustin Hoffman’s out-of-work actor character lands a much-needed role — disguised as a woman.

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