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    Dabney Coleman, Actor Audiences Loved to Hate, Is Dead at 92

    In movies like “9 to 5” and “Tootsie” and on TV shows like “Buffalo Bill,” he turned the portrayal of egomaniacal louts into a fine art.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. He was 92.His daughter Quincy Coleman confirmed the death to The New York Times but did not cite the cause.Mr. Coleman was equally adept at comedy and drama, but he received his greatest acclaim for his comic work — notably in the 1980 movie “9 to 5,” in which he played a thoroughly despicable boss, and the 1983-84 NBC sitcom “Buffalo Bill,” in which he starred as the unscrupulous host of a television talk show in Buffalo.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.”)Mr. Coleman’s manically acerbic performance was widely praised and gained him Emmy Award nominations as best actor in a comedy in 1983 and 1984. Reviewing “Buffalo Bill” in The Times, John J. O’Connor said Mr. Coleman “manages to bring an array of unexpected colors to his performance” and called him “the kind of gifted actor who always seems to be teetering on the verge of becoming a star.” But the ratings were disappointing, and “Buffalo Bill” ran for only 26 episodes.Mr. Coleman with his co-star Geena Davis in a scene from the 1983-84 NBC sitcom “Buffalo Bill,” in which he played the unscrupulous host of a television talk show in Buffalo.Frank Connor/Stampede Productions, via Everett CollectionMr. Coleman revisited the formula in 1987 with the ABC sitcom “The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story,” in which he played a similar character, this time an outspoken sportswriter for a struggling newspaper. He garnered another Emmy nomination for his performance and won a Golden Globe. But low ratings, this time combined with friction between Mr. Coleman and the producer Jay Tarses (who, with Tom Patchett, had created “Buffalo Bill”), led to its demise after just one season.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The World Has Finally Caught Up to Colman Domingo

    Colman Domingo was at the Equinox on 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue when his agent called. A rush of hope overtook him: After a week spent auditioning for eight film and television roles, finally he was about to get something.This was in 2014, which Domingo experienced as a year of incredible highs and dangerously low lows. He had just come off a successful, soul-enriching transfer of the stage musical “The Scottsboro Boys” in London, but upon returning to New York, he felt quickly cut down to size. Despite his Tony nomination for the Kander and Ebb musical, Domingo was stuck auditioning for “under-fives,” screen roles that had little more to offer than a line or two. Still, he felt backed into a corner, praying that one of them would hit.The most promising was a callback for HBO’s Prohibition-era drama “Boardwalk Empire”: To audition for a maître d’ at a Black-owned nightclub, Domingo had donned a tuxedo to sing and tap dance for the producers. You can imagine how he felt, then, when his agent began that call at the gym by saying that everyone on “Boardwalk Empire” had loved his audition. This is the one that’s going to change it up for me, Domingo thought. This is the one that’s going to finally be my big break.There was just one problem, his agent said. After the callback, a historical researcher on the show reminded producers that the maître d’s in those nightclubs were typically light-skinned, and Domingo was not. “Boardwalk Empire” had passed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More