From The New York Times…
Gary Coleman, ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Star, Dies at 42
By Anita Gates
Gary Coleman, the former child star of the hit television series “Diff’rent Strokes,” who dealt with a well-publicized string of financial and personal difficulties after the show ended, died in Provo, Utah, on Friday. He was 42 and lived in Santaquin, a small town near Provo.
Mr. Coleman was taken to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center on Wednesday as a result of a head injury caused by a fall. He suffered an intercranial hemorrhage and died after being removed from life support, a hospital spokeswoman, Janet Frank, told The Associated Press.
Mr. Coleman had been hospitalized twice earlier this year with seizure-related problems. But he had also been in and out of hospitals all his life because of congenital kidney disease, the treatment for which stunted his growth.
Mr. Coleman was 4 feet 8 inches tall. He had his first kidney transplant at 5, and his second when he was 16.
“Diff’rent Strokes,” seen on NBC from 1978 to 1985 and on ABC from 1985 to 1986, was a comedy about a wealthy white New Yorker (Conrad Bain) who adopts two underprivileged black sons. Mr. Coleman’s role made his character, Arnold Jackson, the little-boy version of America’s sweetheart. The show was a sensation, and Mr. Coleman became its breakout star. But there was an undercurrent to the show’s portrayals.
“At the time, Arnold struck audiences as an endlessly endearing trickster figure, whose Harlem-based sensitivity to being hustled had been reduced to a sweetie-pie affectation: ‘What you talkin’ about, Willis?’ ” Virginia Heffernan wrote in The New York Times in 2006, quoting Mr. Coleman’s signature line. “Arnold was supposed to be shrewd and nobody’s fool, but also misguided; after learning his lessons, he was easily tamed and cuddled.” Ms. Heffernan declared the characterization a form of minstrelsy.
As he grew up and looked back, Mr. Coleman saw himself as having been used. He sued his parents and his former manager in 1989 for misappropriation of his trust fund. In 1999 he filed for bankruptcy.
Beginning in the 1990s, he was also arrested several times, charged with assault and disorderly conduct. Just a year ago he was arrested on domestic violence charges. He and his wife, the former Shannon Price, appeared on the reality show “Divorce Court” in 2008 but remained together.
Gary Wayne Coleman was born on Feb. 8, 1968, in Zion, Ill., a small city in the state’s northeastern corner. He was adopted as an infant by W. G. Coleman, a forklift operator, and his wife, Edmonia Sue, a nurse practitioner.
As a young boy, he was cast in a commercial for a Chicago bank, offering a toy lion as a promotion. “You should have a Hubert doll,” the boy told viewers. Years later, Bob Greene, the Chicago Tribune columnist, recalled Mr. Coleman’s impact in that local ad campaign: “If there is chemistry with the camera, six words can make you a star.”
He was spotted by an agent for the television producer Norman Lear and brought to Hollywood for a project that never came to fruition, a new version of the “Our Gang” comedies. Instead he was cast in “Diff’rent Strokes” and was soon earning thousands of dollars per episode.
But after the series ended, his career spiraled downward. He made 20 or so television appearances during the two decades that followed the end of the series, as well as a handful of feature films. (His last was “Midgets vs. Mascots,” a broad 2009 comedy.) But he also tried earning a living outside show business, even working as a security guard at one point.
His difficulties are parodied in the Tony Award-winning musical “Avenue Q,” in which a character named Gary Coleman was the superintendent of a run-down building in a highly undesirable neighborhood. Mr. Coleman talked about suing the show’s producers, but nothing ever came of the threats.
His survivors include his wife.
Mr. Coleman readily talked to interviewers about how unhappy his television success and its trappings had made him. “I would not give my first 15 years to my worst enemy,” he told The Vancouver Province, a Canadian newspaper. “And I don’t even have a worst enemy.”
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