Career

Coleman is 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 Theater in New York City from 1958-60.[citation needed] Early roles in his career included a US Olympic skiing team coach in the 1969 Downhill Racer, 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).

He 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 Nine to Five with the role of the arrogant, sexist, soap opera director in Tootsie (1982), 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 (1983). Since then, Coleman has consistently shifted between roles in serious drama and comedies.

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.[4] He appeared in the feature film On Golden Pond (1981), playing the fiancé of Chelsea Thayer Wayne (Jane Fonda). Coleman played a Hugh Hefner-ish magazine mogul in the comedy Dragnet (1987), 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 (1993). Coleman played Gerald Ellis in Clifford (1994).

From 1997 to 2001, Coleman provided the voice of Principal Prickly on the animated series Recess. He also played a philandering father in You've Got Mail (1998). More recently, Coleman appeared as a casino owner in 2005's Domino. He received acclaim as Burton Fallin in the TV series The Guardian (2001-04). For two seasons, from 2010 to 2011, Coleman was a series regular on HBO's Boardwalk Empire.

On November 6, 2014, Coleman received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[5]

Personal life

Coleman resides in Brentwood, California.[6] He has been divorced twice. He was married to Ann Courtney Harrell from 1957 to 1959 and Jean Hale from 1961 to 1984. He has four children with Hale: Meghan, Kelly, Randy, and singer Quincy.[7]

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 on how to care for and protect forests nationwide.

Coleman is an avid tennis player, winning celebrity and charity tournaments. He played mainly at the Rivera Country Club as well as in local sanctioned tournaments.[8][9]

Filmography

Film

Television

• Naked City (TV) (1961) as Resident
• The Outer Limits (TV) ("The Mice"; 1963) as Dr. Williams
• The Outer Limits (TV) ("Wolf 359"; 1964) as James Custer
• Dear Uncle George (TV) (1964) as Tom Esterow
• The Donna Reed Show (TV) (1965) as Rallye Master
• This Property Is Condemned (1966) as Salesman
• That Girl (TV) (1966-67) as Dr. Leon Bessemer
• The Fugitive (TV) (1967) as Steve / Officer George Graham / Floyd / Sergeant Keith
• The Invaders (TV) (1967) as John Carter / Capt. Mitchell Ross
• Dundee and the Culhane (TV) (1967) as Sheriff Wrenn
• Bonanza (TV) (1968) one episode as Ivar Peterson, (1969) one episode as Clyde
• The Mod Squad (TV) (1969) as John
• The Trouble with Girls (1969) as Harrison Wilby
• Downhill Racer (1969) as Mayo
• The Brotherhood of the Bell (1970) as Agent Shepard
• I Love My Wife (1970) as Frank Donnelly
• The President's Plane Is Missing (1973) as Sen. Bert Haines
• Cinderella Liberty (1973) as Executive Officer
• Columbo ("Double Shock"; 1973) as Detective Murray
• Black Fist (1974) as Heineken
• The Dove (1974) as Charles Huntley
• Bad Ronald (1974) as Mr. Wood
• McMillan & Wife (TV) ("Cross and Double Cross"; 1974)
• Kojak (TV) (1974) as Alex Linden
• The Towering Inferno (1974) as Deputy Chief #1
• Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan (1975) as Paul Mathison
• Bite the Bullet (1975) as Jack Parker
• McMillan & Wife: Aftershock (TV) (1975) as Walter Jennings
• The Other Side of the Mountain (1975) as Dave McCoy
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show (TV) (1976) as Congressman Phil Whitman
• Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (TV) (1976-77) as Merle Jeeter
• Midway (1976) as Captain Murray Arnold
• Viva Knievel! (1977) as Ralph Thompson
• Rolling Thunder (1977) as Maxwell
• Quincy, M.E. (TV) (1977) as Officer Peter O'Neil / Dr. Burt Travers
• Apple Pie (TV) (1978) as "Fast Eddie" Murtaugh
• Maneaters Are Loose! (1978) as McCallum
• The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 (1978) as Dave McCoy (uncredited)
• Go Tell the Spartans (1978) as Helicopter pilot (uncredited)
• North Dallas Forty (1979) as Emmett Hunter
• Nothing Personal (1980) as Dickerson
• How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980) as Jack Heintzel
• Melvin and Howard (1980) as Judge Keith Hayes
• 9 to 5 (1980) as Franklin Hart, Jr.
• Pray TV (1980) as Marvin Fleece
• On Golden Pond (1981) as Dr. Bill Ray
• Modern Problems (1981) as Mark Winslow
• Young Doctors in Love (1982) as Dr. Joseph Prang
• Tootsie (1982) as Ron Carlisle
• WarGames (1983) as McKittrick
• Buffalo Bill (TV) (1983-84) as Bill Bittinger
• Cloak & Dagger (1984) as Jack Flack / Hal Osborne
• The Man with One Red Shoe (1985) as Cooper
• Fresno (TV miniseries; 1986) as Tyler Cane
• Murrow (TV Movie - 1986) as CBS President William S. Paley
• Dragnet (1987) as Jerry Caesar
• The Slap Maxwell Story (TV; 1987-88) as Slap Maxwell
• Hot to Trot (1988) as Walter Sawyer
• Meet the Applegates (1990) as Aunt Bea
• Never Forget (1991) as William Cox
• Drexell's Class (TV) (1991-92) as Otis Drexell
• Columbo ("Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star"; 1991) as Hugh Creighton
• Amos & Andrew (1993) as Chief of Police Cecil Tolliver
• The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) as Milburn Drysdale
• Clifford (1994) as Gerald Ellis
• Judicial Consent (1994) as Charles Mayron
• Witch Way Love (1997) as Joel
• Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998) as Lieutenant Kevin Stolper
• Taken (1999) as Ethan Grover
• The Guardian (2001-04) as Burton Fallin
• The Climb (2002) as Mack
• Moonlight Mile (2002) as Mike Mulcahey
• Where the Red Fern Grows (2003) as Grandpa
• Domino (2005) as Drake Bishop
• Heartland (2007) as Dr. Bart Jacobs
• Hard Four (2007) as Spray Loomis
• Boardwalk Empire (2010-11) as Commodore Louis Kaestner
• Ray Donovan (2016, Season 4, Episode 4) as Mr. Price

Awards and nominations

[ Source: Wikipedia ]