What? Mean-Spirited? Dabney Coleman Defends His Persona

The blessing and the bane of Dabney Coleman's durable career as a comic actor is The Dabney Coleman Character. In films like "Tootsie" and "9 to 5," and in the handful of television series that have featured him, Mr. Coleman has played variations of The Character: vain, irascible and unabashedly self-involved.

It is a sort of role that has brought him critical acclaim and steady work for 20 years. But none of the series in which Mr. Coleman has starred have been hits, and many television analysts and number crunchers have concluded that The Dabney Coleman Character is simply too mean-spirited and unlikable to be invited into America's living rooms each week.

So "Madman of the People," Mr. Coleman's new sitcom, which is to begin on NBC later this month, has already been put on the critical list by many of the prognosticators, despite protests from the show's creators and Mr. Coleman himself that this time, The Character is just different enough. Discovering Another Side

"We think we've avoided that polarization thing, by surrounding him with a wife and family, with people who love and care for him," said Stuart Kreisman, an executive producer of the new show. "He didn't have these in the other series. This way, we can bring out his other side."

Indeed, the central gimmick of "Madman of the People" is that Jack (Madman) Bruckner, played by Mr. Coleman, is a columnist for a magazine whose publisher is his daughter.

In NBC's news release about the show, Mr. Coleman describes Jack as "a loyal friend and a family guy without being unctuous about it." Others might describe him somewhat differently. In the pilot episode of "Madman," he tries to win an important concession from his daughter by coolly holding her childhood teddy bear hostage. At knifepoint.

"You know, I objected to that," Mr. Coleman said recently in an interview. "I said, 'They're not going to laugh at this.' But I was wrong. They laughed their heads off."

Mr. Coleman has played The Character so convincingly and for so long that many people think he is simply being himself. Mr. Coleman denies it.

"It isn't me," said Mr. Coleman, who was seated comfortably but alert and chain-smoking in the living room of his Brentwood home. He is a lean and impossibly fit-looking 62 years old.

"Well, it is me socially, in a way," he went on. "It's me kidding around. I mean, I kid around with that humor. And with that kind of character. And so in the course of a social evening, you'll see a lot of that, but that isn't who I am. That's just a guy that I'm playing, just to fool around, you know." Remember Buffalo Bill?

The Dabney Coleman Character in perhaps its purest form was Bill Bittinger, the conniving, duplicitous talk-show host who was the titular protagonist of the television series "Buffalo Bill." That NBC series, which ran just one year, from May 1983 to April 1984, became a cult favorite whose reruns lived on for years on cable. But it also helped plant in network executives' minds the notion that Mr. Coleman's persona was too abrasive, too mean-spirited to attract a mass audience.

That is the image Mr. Kreisman and his partner, Christopher Cluess, are trying to soften, without turning The Character into Mister Rogers. Mr. Cluess explained it this way: "This is the first show where the others don't give him license to abuse them. He has to face the music, be accountable for his acts. And Buffalo Bill was a real coward. Jack Bruckner is not like that. We think the audience will wind up loving him."

Mr. Coleman is quick to note he has frequently and vehemently argued with writers and producers when, in his opinion, they have pushed his character too far in the direction of venality. (That he can be argumentative is well established. It was a series of battles with the writer and producer Jay Tarses that led to the cancellation of the 1987 series "The Slap Maxwell Story.")

And Mr. Coleman is proud of his serious roles, including the husband of Jane Fonda's character in the film "On Golden Pond" and a burned-out lawyer in the television movie "Sworn to Silence," a performance for which he won an Emmy. Twice Divorced

Mr. Coleman is twice divorced, with three grown children. He said he had recently broken up with a female companion of many years. "I miss her and I miss it," he added.

Mr. Coleman was born in Austin, Tex. He graduated from Virginia Military Institute, served in the Army and studied law before moving to New York and taking acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse. After having moved to Los Angeles, he spent years playing assorted businessmen and guest villains on television series like "The Fugitive" and "The F.B.I." For one season, he was Dr. Leon Bessemer, Marlo Thomas's neighbor on "That Girl."

Then, in 1976, he was signed for what was supposed to be a temporary job playing Merle Jeeter, the stage father of a child evangelist, on the bizarre comic soap opera "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman." He was so good in that part that he survived the tragically unsolved murder of young Jeeter -- Merle Jeeter was the culprit, of course -- and became a regular, eventually running for Mayor of Fernwood, the show's locale, and having an affair with Mary Hartman herself.

"It was wonderful," said Mr. Coleman's good friend Dennis Klein, who was the head writer for "Mary Hartman" and later a driving force behind "Buffalo Bill."

"One of the fun things in those days was watching him," said Mr. Klein. "He was really shy about playing such an evil character. He was so scared of his character that he would try to not appear on camera. What I mean by this is that he would be constantly turning his back.

"We used a lot of improvisational writing and a lot of improvisational blocking. So he'd be constantly turning upstage, to avoid being seen. And wandering off so that you couldn't pull your camera back far enough to show him and any other person. And I would say to him, 'Dabney, why won't you appear on camera?' But anyway, eventually he did come a long way from that, and he got more and more comfortable."

So comfortable, in fact, that Mr. Coleman feels ready to lead "Madman," scheduled in the plum Thursday night time slot of 9:30, after "Seinfeld," to a ratings victory. 'It's Acting Funny'

And if it doesn't work out? Well then, he's certain, there will be another sitcom starring The Dabney Coleman Character. And another. And another.

And Mr. Coleman will be present, trying, he says, to make sure they get it right.

"Writers write wrong for me sometimes," he said. "They're trying to be funny, usually. Trying to make a joke. And that's not what I do, you know. It's not jokes; it's not words. It's acting. It's acting funny.

"So I've gotten to where I'm now saying: 'Guys, start trusting me. This is Wednesday. If it's not good on Wednesday, it's not going to be good on Friday. Even if you're convinced it's good, change it. Because for me it isn't.' "