RIP Gary Coleman
Gary Coleman in 2008 (Associated Press file photo)
Gary Coleman, the child star of the hit 1970s TV sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes” whose later career was troubled by medical and legal problems, died today after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was 42.
According to the Associated Press, Coleman suffered the hemorrhage Wednesday at his Santaquin, Utah, home, 55 miles south of Salt Lake City. A statement from the family said he was conscious and lucid until midday Thursday, when his condition worsened and he slipped into unconsciousness. Coleman was then placed on life support.
Utah Valley Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Janet Frank told the AP life support was terminated and Coleman died at 12:05 p.m. MDT.
With his sparkling eyes and comic timing, Coleman became a star at age 10 after “Diff’rent Strokes” debuted in 1978. He played Arnold Jackson, the younger of a pair of black brothers adopted by a wealthy white man.
Race and class relations became major topics on the show, along with the trials of growing up. Coleman’s skeptical “Whatchu talkin’ ’bout?” — usually aimed at his brother, Willis (Todd Bridges) — became an enduring catchphrase.
Coleman’s popularity faded when the show ended after six seasons on NBC and two on ABC. However, it lives on thanks to DVDs and YouTube.
Coleman suffered continuing ill health from the kidney disease that stunted his growth and had a host of legal problems in recent years.
Coleman told the AP in 2001 that he would do a TV series again, but “only under the absolute condition that it be an ensemble cast and that everybody gets a chance to shine.”
“I certainly am not going to be the only person on the show working,” he said. “I’ve done that. I didn’t like it.”
Coleman wasn’t the only former child star on the series to face troubles in adulthood. Dana Plato, who played the boys’ white, teenage sister, committed suicide in 1999. Bridges was tried and acquitted of attempted murder.
Coleman had financial and legal problems in addition to continuing ill health from the kidney disease that required dialysis and at least two transplants. His height reached only 4 feet 8 inches.
He continued to get credits for TV guest shots and other small roles over the years. But he told the AP in 2001 that he preferred earning money from celebrity endorsements. “Now that I’m 33, I can call the shots. … And if anybody has a problem with that, I guess they don’t have to work with me.”
Coleman was among 135 candidates who ran in California’s bizarre 2003 recall election to replace then-Gov. Gray Davis, whom voters ousted in favor of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Coleman came in eighth place with 12,488 votes, or 0.2 percent, just behind Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt.
“This is really interesting and cool, and I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it because I get to be intelligent, which is something I don’t get to do very often,” he told the AP.
But legal disputes dogged him repeatedly. In 1989, when Coleman was 21, his mother filed a court request trying to gain control of her son’s $6 million fortune, saying he was incapable of handling his affairs. He said the move “obviously stems from her frustration at not being able to control my life.”
In a 1993 television interview, he said he had twice tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills.
He moved to Utah in fall 2005, and according to a tally early this year, officers were called to assist or intervene with Coleman more than 20 times in the following years. They included a call where Coleman said he had taken dozens of Oxycontin pills and “wanted to die.” Some of the disputes involved his wife, Shannon Price, whom he met on the set of the 2006 comedy “Church Ball” and married in 2007.
In September 2008, a dustup with a fan at a Utah bowling alley led Coleman to plead no contest to disorderly conduct. The fan also sued him, claiming the actor punched him and ran into him with his truck.
Coleman was born Feb. 8, 1968, in Zion, Ill., near Chicago. His mother told Ebony his kidney disease was diagnosed when he was 2 and he underwent his first transplant at age 5.
-BAM
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