Dabney Coleman, the bad boss of ‘9 to 5’ and ‘Yellowstone’ guest star, dies at 92

Dabney Coleman, the beloved character actor who famously played the dastardly cad overseeing Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton in the movie “9 to 5,” has died. I don’t want to do jokes,” the actor told The Times in 1991, when he gained a reputation as the king of TV curmudgeons in the unconventional TV comedies “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” “Buffalo Bill” and “The Slap Maxwell Story.” “I lean toward mean,” Coleman, who was in his late 50s at the time, said. They traveled to Los Angeles, where he began regularly appearing on television in shows such as “Naked City” and “The Outer Limits.” In the 1970s, he clinched notable parts on “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and in the feature films “Downhill Racer” and “The Towering Inferno.” But his career as a humorous cad took off in 1980 when he landed the part of the “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” Franklin Hart Jr. in Colin Higgins’ radical feminist comedy “9 to 5.” Coleman said he always had “more fun playing bad guys” and relished the “rottenness” of his chauvinistic character. They missed what we’re trying to do, which is trying to make a funny movie.” Looking back at his role in the film, Coleman was struck to be starring amid “these three icons,” he said in Brian Beasley’s 2017 documentary “Not Such a Bad Guy: Conversations With Dabney Coleman.” He played similar roles in “Modern Problems” and “Tootsie” and took on more serious roles in “On Golden Pond” and “Cloak and Dagger.” On television, he also starred in the acclaimed but short-lived series “Buffalo Bill” in the early 1980s and earned a Golden Globe for his role in the late 1980s comedy “The Slap Maxwell Story.” Coleman told The Times that he took a role in the comedy series “Drexell’s Class” in 1991 to gain visibility that he thought could land him significant parts in feature films.