Gary Wayne Coleman was a renowned child TV star of the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was a refreshingly confident and charming young boy with sparkling dark eyes and an ingratiating personality. Coleman was born on February 8, 1968, to a homeless woman and was adopted by a fork-lift operator and his nurse practitioner wife from a Chicago hospital when he was just a few days old.
Raised in Zion, Illinois, Coleman had severe health issues before the age of 2. He was born with one atrophied kidney and an endangering weak second one, and he had two kidney transplants by the time he reached age 16. The effects of his dialysis medication permanently stunted his growth to 4'8".
Coleman's precocious comedy skills were discovered in local Chicago commercials, and he quickly became a natural in front of the camera. At the age of 9, he was spotted by Norman Lear's talent scout in a Chicago bank commercial, and he was brought in to brighten up Lear's sitcoms such as "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times".
In 1978, Coleman landed his own prime-time sitcom, "Diff'rent Strokes", where he played the youngest brother, Arnold Jackson. The show's underlying approach was to preach racial and social tolerance, and Coleman's wisecracking gifts gave the show its spark. He became a hit on the talk show circuit, trading clever banter with legendary comics such as Bob Hope and Lucille Ball.
Coleman's popularity led to a series of lightweight TV-movie showcases, including "The Kid from Left Field", "Scout's Honor", "The Kid with the Broken Halo", and "The Kid with the 200 I.Q.". He also made modest film comedies such as "On the Right Track" and "Jimmy the Kid". In 1982, he starred in the animated series "The Gary Coleman Show".
As Coleman grew older, he felt trapped and pigeonholed by his juvenile image and begged to get out from under it. However, he found that a very fickle public was not as receptive to seeing him grow up. He was reduced to making weird guest appearances and small parts in even smaller films.
This crash course in reality triggered an increasingly erratic and aggressive behavior in Coleman, who became increasingly angry and bitter about his lack of work. He was arrested in 1999 for punching a persistent female autograph fan and was fined and ordered to take anger-management classes.
Coleman's adult problems also came in the form of scattered financial and legal entanglements, as well as scrapes with the law. He was arrested multiple times for disorderly conduct and reckless driving, and he admitted to making several feigned suicide attempts.
In 2007, Coleman married actress Shannon Price, but the marriage dissolved quickly into domestic squabbles that put him in front of the court system yet again on domestic abuse charges. He later moved and settled in Utah.
In early 2009, Coleman starred in his last film, the crude independent comedy "Midgets vs. Mascots". Following heart surgery complicated by pneumonia, he suffered a heart seizure in February 2010 while performing on a Hollywood set. The 42-year-old actor died of a brain hemorrhage on May 28, 2010, after suffering an epidural haematoma from a fall at home.
