Dabney Coleman

Dabney Coleman was at a military school in Virginia before studying law and serving in the army.

It was while attending the University of Texas that Coleman became interested in acting, and so he headed to New York, where he studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse.

Dabney Coleman made his movie debut in The Slender Thread. Minus his trademarked mustache for the most part in the mid-1960s, Coleman specialized in secondary character roles that were not outright villains, but somehow lacking in leading-man integrity.

It was clear that Coleman had comic talent after the sitcom That Girl. In 1976, Coleman was cast as self-serving Mayor Jeeter (a role the actor still regards as a favorite) on Norman Lear's soap opera spoof Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

It was four years later when Coleman burst forth in full hissable glory as the nasty, chauvinistic boss in 9 to 5.

After 9 to 5, Coleman's film roles became increasingly stereotyped; he was better served on television, where he starred in the ground-breaking sitcom Buffalo Bill, playing TV's first thoroughly, unremittingly despicable "hero" and winning a nomination for a "Best Actor" Emmy.

The series didn't last (audiences laughed at but did not love Buffalo Bill), but made enough of an impression for Coleman to ever afterward find himself playing cantankerous, mean-spirited sitcom leads; as recently as 1994, Coleman sneered his way through the starring role of a reactionary newspaper columnist in NBC's short-lived Madman of the People