Biography

Peter Tenny Coffield (July 17, 1945 – November 19, 1983) was an American actor. Coffield worked as an actor in theater, television, and film. He is best known for his role in the film Cry Rape!. His other films include Times Square (1980) and Neil Simon's Only When I Laugh.Coffield guest starred on several TV shows throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including The Love Boat, Hart to Hart, Eight Is Enough, Wide World Mystery, Family, ‘’ Barnaby Jones’’ and Love, Sidney, and he acted in TV movies such as Washington: Behind Closed Doors, and The Man Without a Country. He also performed in several plays on Broadway, including Hamlet (1969), Abelard and Heloise (1971), The Merchant of Venice (1973), Tartuffe (1977), and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1980).In addition to Broadway, Coffield had key roles in Misalliance at the Roundabout Theater, in A. R. Gurney's Middle Ages at the Hartman Theater in Stamford, Conn., and in S. N. Behrman's No Time for Comedy at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J., and he performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington and at the Old Globe Shakespeare Festival Theater in San Diego.In The New York Times review of Coffield's performance as a homosexual student in Abelard and Heloise, theater critic Walter Kerr wrote, "Making a mask of his broad, handsome face, Mr. Coffield went about his chores deftly, confidently, with clear and virile purpose. Saying little, he seemed to think a great deal: thought can be a scene-thief, it turns out."Coffield was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in 1974 for Best Actor in Daytime Drama for his role in CBS Daytime 90: Legacy of Fear.