Maybe likeability is overrated.
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You dont have to be likable to be fun.
A lot of actors resist this truth.
Dabney Coleman, who died this weekend at 92, embraced it.
Every time, the audience cheered.
The first person to identify a Dabney Coleman Part was Dabney Coleman.
After we got to know him, he tormented the Muppets inThe Muppets Take Manhattan(1984).
He was Martin Shorts slimy boss inthe infamous filmClifford(1994).
His greatest late-in-life monster role was as Commodore Louis Kaestner, a.k.a.
the Commodore, on HBOsBoardwalk Empire, who makes Noah Cross inChinatownseem like a comparatively well-adjusted guy.
Coleman was from Austin, Texas, and had the drawl to prove it.
He was also a fascinating actor whose technique and temperament straddled two eras.
He was born in 1938, too early to be called a boomer.
You could imagine him as a creep in a late-1940s Cary Grant movie.
Hes the hilarious, the most outrageous character on television: truly an unsentimental cad.
Coleman deadpanned, She lied.
That one was canceled after a year, too.
An unlikable lead ceased to be a dealbreaker.
You could make the case that every such lead is ultimately a variation of a Dabney Coleman part.
Theyrealleither Buffalo Bill or Slap Maxwell.
David Brent is Buffalo Bill.
Michael Scott is Slap Maxwell.
Coleman took these sorts of characters as far as they could go in whatever medium contained them.
I dont take credit for being the first,he told Vulture a few years ago.
I would have to give that to Carroll OConnor.
But sure, I was one of the first.
Its fun playing those roles.
I couldnt imagine anyone not loving playing those parts.
No matter how low the characters went, there was always the possibility that they could go lower.
In his no-fuss way, he was a dangerous actor.
