Dabney Coleman, an award-winning television and movie actor best known for his over-the-top portrayals of garrulous, egomaniacal characters, died on Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif.
His daughter Quincy Coleman confirmed the death to The New York Times but did not cite the cause.
At a time when antiheroic leads, with the outsize exception of Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker, were a rarity on television comedies, Mr. Coleman’s distinctly unlikable Bill Bittinger on “Buffalo Bill” was an exception.
A profile of Mr. Coleman in Rolling Stone called Bill “a rapscallion for our times, a playfully wicked combination of G. Gordon Liddy and Groucho Marx.” (“He has to do something terrible,” Bill’s station manager said of him in one episode.
“It’s in his blood.”)
Persons:
Dabney Coleman, Quincy Coleman, Coleman, antiheroic, Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker, Coleman’s, Bill Bittinger, Buffalo Bill ”, Rolling Stone, Bill “, Gordon Liddy, Groucho Marx, ”, “ It’s
Organizations:
New York Times, NBC, Buffalo
Locations:
Santa Monica, Calif, Buffalo