# Actor Gary Coleman dead at 42 \[edited title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 28, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092 "2010-05-28T17:37:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/61 "2010-06-03T02:30:18Z")
And as a final humorous twist to what is actually a very sad story at its heart (as it seems to me that everyone who was in a trusted postition with Gary Coleman—his mom and dad, his managers, finally his wife—fucked him over to get their clutches on the money that he was bringing in) now Gary Coleman’s lawyer said that GC and his wife were divorced back in 2008, and were just living together after that point. If his (ex)wife really had something to do with his death, wouldn’t it be poetic justice (for once) if she never saw a dime from her little plan… ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/62 "2010-06-03T02:58:19Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > ETA: The girl in the wheelchair was [Melanie Bernhardt](http://www.sitcomsonline.com/dswhere.html)- scroll down. Still alive, doing well apparently, same condition as my father’s cousin Pete and his daughter- osteogenesis imperfecta. There are two enduring things other than “Whatchoo talkin’ 'bout, Willis?” that I remember from _Diff’rent Strokes_. One is Gordon Jump as the child molester and the other is the “HANDICAPABLE!” girl. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/63 "2010-06-03T03:01:56Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > There are two enduring things other than “Whatchoo talkin’ 'bout, Willis?” that I remember from _Diff’rent Strokes_. One is Gordon Jump as the child molester… “Dad, he touched me” ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/64 "2010-06-03T03:11:37Z")
He died at 42. He lived a short life. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/65 "2010-06-03T03:50:47Z")
What a useless human being, his wife. She thinks he might be dying but she can’t help because she might gag? He dies while fixing **her** some lunch? Kee-rist. Poor guy. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/66 "2010-06-04T13:05:02Z")
Did they ever give more information on the accident? I’ve wondered if he hit his head on the edge of a counter top after the fall. It’s a shame Gary allowed bitterness and anger to consume him. I found his recent interviews impossible to watch. There was no joy in his life at all. He could never let the past die. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/67 "2010-06-04T14:18:40Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Bridges said, and I believe him, that Gary was working on DIFF’RENT STROKES episode when he was _rejecting a kidney_ and vomiting between scenes and, per Bridges, his parents and the producers were all giving him pep talks about how the show must go on even while the cast and some studio audience members were saying “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP!!!” He said Bain threatened to quit unless they wrote some no-Arnold episodes while he recovered but was threatened with lawsuit if he did or if he talked about it, and since Gary kept coming to work he didn’t have much leg to stand on. Good grief. That’s … insane. Genuinely, psychotically insane. Who would do that to a kid? Hell, to anyone? For that matter - at the risk of sounding callous, what studio counsel worth his salt would let this happen? I mean, there are so many, many ways that incident could have ended in litigation - even the coldest sonovabitch in the California bar would put a stop to it. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/68 "2010-06-04T14:23:45Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > She was …very clear (I think she mentions this more than once) to the emergency dispatcher that she had been lovingly fixing Gary lunch when he fell (which of course tells EVERYONE that this HAD to be a terrible accident—nothing to see here, now where’s that will of his???)… > > It has an odd smell about it, but it may just be the Great Salt Lake. I agree, it doesn’t sound quite right. On the other hand, Gary Coleman was supposedly talking and conscious in the hospital before he faded into a coma. You’d think he’d mention something untoward. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/69 "2010-06-08T04:03:37Z")
The ex-wife has now done what any truly loving spouse, ex or current, would do and sold pictures of him on life support and then dead to tabloids. That is so sweet. [Cite](http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/confidential/gary-colemans-last-moments-photographed-sold-with-ex-wife-getting-cut-of-profits-claims-tmz/story-e6frf96o-1225876930262) (no dead pics). I have no respect for his parents, but I hope that whatever she received for those pictures they get from her with twice more in interest and punitive damages, the damned ‘rhymes with runt but less of an R and more of a C’. This is the same woman who wanted it made clear she couldn’t afford to bury him- I wonder if she will now. How mercenary and just… skanky can you get? Dana Plato’s skeazebag oxygen thief of a husband (or boyfriend, I forget which) did the exact same thing when she died: he shopped around pics of her dead body taken in the motor home before the ambulance even arrived. What I’ll always remember- and I wish I had photographic proof- is that the National Enquirer wrote an article taking the moral highground about how sleazy this was and how they would never stoop that low even though he’d offered them the pictures. Instead they published an artist’s rendering of the photo!!! Way to stand by that journalistic integrity you’re so famous for, Nati. Asked how many thousands she received for her share of the photo sale, the former Mrs. Coleman stomped her left hoof twenty times and said “Wheeeeeeny!” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/70 "2010-06-09T03:51:52Z")
And two more sordid developments: -Ex-wife has been [stopped by court order](http://www.sltrib.com/ci_15252025?source=most_viewed) from removing items from the house they shared even though she has no authority to do so (though admittedly it would be difficult to prove what was her’s and what was his with much of it). -Coleman’s will has a sentence requesting his memorial service be > [@](#): > > “conducted by those who have had no financial ties to me and can look each other in the eyes and say they really cared personally for Gary Coleman.” -According to co-star Todd Bridges, famously broke Gary’s estate could be worth millions due to [his pension fund](http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/06/exclusive-video-interview-todd-bridges-reveals-gary-coleman-left-huge-secret) > [@](#): > > Bridges said he was not aware of the final amount in Coleman’s pension when he died. > > However, he admitted his own was $150,000-a-year for a lifetime duration, beginning from the age of 55. > > Bridges predicted Coleman’s goldmine would be even more, given the diminutive star made twice as much as him – $18 million – during the eight years both starred on Diff’rent Strokes. Bridges also had some choice words about the former Mrs. Coleman of course. Bridges is, incidentally, seemingly a completely changed man from his “troubled child star” heyday: sober, solvent, happily married, etc.. I wonder if anybody could arrange an introduction between Gary’s ex wife and Dustin Diamond? I think she’d be perfect for him. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/71 "2010-06-09T09:20:34Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Whatever happened to that girl in the wheelchair on the show? Or Geri Jewell- another disabled '80s sitcom star- instead he gets Miss Utah Skank 2005.) Off the topic, Geri Jewell played Jewel, the cleaning woman at Al Swearengen’s Gem Saloon in _Deadwood._ At 11 years older than Coleman, I doubt he would have given her much consideration. Besides, her life seems to be more stable. She was married to disabled-rights advocate Richard Pimentel from 1992 to 2002. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092/72 "2010-06-11T21:00:00Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > if Chang and Eng found wives he could have found somebody else. My [uncle Pete](http://www.phreeque.com/pete_moore.html)was 2 feet tall (not counting his legs) and found a wife who was 5’10 and had two kids- Gary didn’t have to aim that low. > Whatever happened to that girl in the wheelchair on the show? Or Geri Jewell- another disabled '80s sitcom star- instead he gets Miss Utah Skank 2005.) > > ETA: The girl in the wheelchair was [Melanie Bernhardt](http://www.sitcomsonline.com/dswhere.html)- scroll down. Still alive, doing well apparently, same condition as my father’s cousin Pete and his daughter- osteogenesis imperfecta. I have to apologize- for once, I thought you were making up a family story. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actor-gary-coleman-dead-at-42-edited-title/541092.md?page=3)