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Born in California, Coleman's grandfather, Harold McClary was an All-American basketball star as well as a pioneer of the sport at the University of Washington. At 6' 7" he was one of the tallest men in the country to play at that time. His father, Douglas McClary, at 6' 8" went on to achieve NCAA Basketball, Pacific 10, and Hall of Fame recognition at the University of Washington as well. Coleman never liked in-door sports and as a result became a track stand-out in High School and achieved success as a walk-on football player at the University of Mississippi making the scout team as a receiver until an injury quelled his football career.
Questioning his career path, Coleman sat in on an acting class taught by then Artist in Residence at Ole Miss, James Best. At one point during the class, Mr. Best wandered through the large crowd of students, stopped at Coleman, looked at him for a long time, --- and then told him to get up on the stage to act. Coleman was sitting in on the class nursing a broken heart because his then Southern Belle girlfriend had dumped him for a frat boy and was in a theatrical production. Coleman lost the girl but fell in love with acting.
After performing in a stage production of William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dieing" at Ole Miss, one of the first things he did was read biographies about actors he admired. Among them were Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood. He noticed that they had all lived very independent romantic lives. Coleman felt his life had been too sheltered and that he needed to experience the world, so for the next few years he traveled around the country taking odd jobs, seeking adventure, growing up and joining theater troupes along the way to study his craft.
During his travels he was a stand-out as Sergius in George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" receiving powerful reviews from Jack Brooks of San Francisco's West Bay Today and Douglas Dean Goodman of the San Francisco Drama Logue.
Armed with these reviews Coleman went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. He continued his training in master class with Michael Moriarty, Geraldine Page, Stella Adler, Larry Moss and Ken Lerner. He grew in his craft performing in such stage roles as R. P. McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in NYC, as Roger in "The Pleasure of His Company" with Dennis Morgan in Wisconsin, and playing Simon Peter in a National Tour of the Oberammergau Passion Play. His first prime-time television job, was playing Kerwin in Blacke's Magic (1986) with Hal Linden and Harry Morgan. During this time he picked up valuable experience working on the Soap Opera's Santa Barbara (1984), Days of Our Lives (1965) and The Young and the Restless (1973). He also spent time traveling between Los Angeles and New York working in numerous theatrical productions and commercials.
In Los Angeles he is known by many people for playing Jesus for 5 years in the large scale Los Angeles Passion Play of the San Fernando Valley (1998, 2000-2003) attracting audiences of up to 1500 per performance, 20,000 per year. Surprisingly, following playing such a dramatic role, Coleman started to excel in comedy in his future projects. Other comedies included the award winning film Hot Java (2004) directed by Adam B. Stein, a top 3 finalist in Steven Spielberg's On the Lot (2007); Herstory (2005) with Lesley Fera and Albie Selznick; a critically acclaimed stage production of Bernard Slade's "Same Time, Next Year"; and Hubristic (2010) produced by 3 Time Emmy nominated Joe Gressis and scored by BAFTA nominated Austin Wintory. Hubristic is a "Best Comedy" winner at the New York International Film Festival where Coleman won a "Best Actor" award (2012) for the Los Angeles screenings, sharing the honor with Steven Bauer who won for the New York screenings.
Coleman continued his dramatic work landing a series regular role as Dennis in the ensemble TV series drama What Goes On (2007) produced by Viacom for the MTV Networks and starring in the award-winning "Bar Noise" and Time (2008). But he caps it off with a highly amusing, highly acclaimed Jack in the Box "Swingers" commercial that aired during the historic Super Bowl XLII. From this commercial he was hired to play another comedic role in the feature film Table for Three (2009) starring Sophia Bush and Brandon Routh.
As Coleman continues to gain momentum in his career and craft he is also in the process of producing the feature film "Dreams of Aces", a story inspired by double-ace Korean war hero, Hal Fischer. The script is twice award-winning and Coleman is also one of the writers along with Robert J. McCrea of the critically acclaimed Find Me Guilty (2006) (directed by Sidney Lumet) and award-winning writer Daniel Dominguez. Coleman became close friends with Col. Fischer before he passed away, and the movie contains an important chapter of history and politics that features some highly amusing and entertaining moments inspired from Fischer's life, combined with a heart wrenching truth regarding the missing MIAs of the Korean War. The film is being produced with Academy Award nominated and Sundance winning producer Mark G. Mathis. A prequel, "Sorrow for Gold" is also in the making, (written by Coleman, story by Daniel Dominguez and Coleman) and again being produced with Mr. Mathis, paving the way to produce two more films. Coleman is playing a lead in both films, thus taking an active position in guiding his career.
Coleman spends time between New York and Los Angeles and loves being an actor and writing --- and more than that loves that his career is just beginning, as he embarks on a new journey producing 2 feature films.
