Vital Viewing (Heroes and Villains Edition)

 

1932-2024

Though he played all sorts of characters throughout his long career, Dabney Coleman's specialty was the comic scoundrel, the man you not so much love to hate, but rather are too busy laughing at to hate. Yet the real-life Coleman comes across as anything but a scoundrel as he receives his Hollywood Walk of Fame star back in 2014:

In addition to Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President Leon Gubler, the other two men speaking were filmmaker Mark Ryder, who directed the movie version of On Golden Pond (which we'll get to in a second), and television director Dennis Klein, who helmed several episodes of Coleman's critically acclaimed but short-lived sitcom Buffalo Bill. Actress Penelope Ann Miller was also on hand. I can find no movie or TV production that Coleman and Miller appeared in together, so maybe she was just there as a friend. There are such things as friendships in Hollywood.  

Though he worked steadily throughout the 1960s and into the '70s, Dabney Coleman's career didn't really take off until he joined the cast of the above prime time/late night comedy soap opera in its second season. Coleman played the somewhat devious Merle Jeeter, father of nine-year-old child evangelist Jimmy Joe Jeeter. After that story line came to its (literally) shocking conclusion, Merle ran for mayor of Fernwood, Ohio, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman's fictional setting: 

Merle won, naturally. He fit right in with that fucked-up town.

Taking a break from the comic scoundrel for just a moment, 1982's On Golden Pond, based on a Broadway play of the same name, gives me a chance to show you Coleman's range as an actor, that he could do drama as well as comedy. Despite his character not deemed significant enough for his visage to appear on the above movie poster, in the following scene you'll see that Coleman more than holds his own with the great Henry Fonda (as he also does in scenes with the great Katharine Hepburn and the great Jane Fonda):

Did that old dude just say you could ask him anything you wanted to about sex?

Sorry Dr. Reuben, you've just been replaced by a Fonda.

Back to Dabney Coleman. Hank's daughter Jane must not have minded working with Coleman, because a year before On Golden Pond, they both appeared in this comedy blockbuster:

Unlike Jane, Lily, and Dolly, Coleman doesn't receive above-the-title billing, but at least he's prominently displayed on the poster, as well as the movie itself. We'll show him with each of these ladies, starting with Lily:

Now Dolly:

And finally, Jane:

Where's a golden parachute when a corporate executive needs one?