After watching Nick at Nite recently, I was just wondering: Supposedly, child-actor Gary Coleman (of the 1980’s) had some kidney or adrenal disorder keeping him as an adult in a child’s body - as he grows. I believe his life expectency was predicted to be cut short due to this.
I never heard anything more. Anyone know his story?
(Although, his then-teenage co-stars have been a mess ever since starring on “Diff’rent Strokes”.)
What happened to “Arnold”?
I dunno exactly what the little guy is up to these days, but he rather recently did a guest voice on The Simpsons.
Here it is. Original air date was December 19, 1999.
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/BABF07
OK…
This is according to the IMDB.
Gary Coleman suffers from kidney disease, and has undergone two kidney transplants. The kidney disease stunted his growth, and explains his lack of stature.
He’s also had some legal problems. He successfully sued his parents for 3.8 million dollars for allegedly mismanaging his trust fund earned when he was on “Diffrent Strokes”.
He does act occasionally. He’s now appearing in some commercial for Orkin pest control. He’s also writing an online column for ugo.com.
I don’t know the specifics of his kidney problems, but I assume he’s OK otherwise.
Robin
He has also appeard on the Tonight Show within the last few months.
I saw him on Judge Mills Lane a few months ago too. Some lady was suing him for assualt. If memory serves, he lost.
The one’s that aren’t dead, that is…
Opie and Anthony, a radio team here in NY but soon to be syndicated everywhere, had him on the phone a few months ago. They spoke to him for a few minutes and put him on hold. Then, just for laughs, decided to play a game to see how long they could keep him on hold. About 2 hours later they ended the show and he was still holding!
I saw him on SNL a couple of seasons ago. He was definitely older and bigger, but still looked way young.
I read that he’s working as a security guard at one of the studios to supplement his much-reduced acting income.
I saw him IN PERSON at a computer fair in Pomona, CA. He was a paid spokesman shilling some sort of virtual type storage device for PC data. Poor guy, he’s going through a spiel about this product, and NOBODY is stopping by the booth…this in a very crowded exhibition hall with loads of very busy hardware and software vendors.
Kind of felt sorry for the guy. Really.
Phouchg
He’s on the Steve and DC Show every now and again. He seems to have a positive attitude.
Damn thats rude.
Jinx writes:
> Supposedly, child-actor Gary Coleman (of the 1980’s) had
> some kidney or adrenal disorder keeping him as an adult
> in a child’s body - as he grows.
This is a bad way of putting it. He does not have a child’s body. He’s short. Lots of us are short. Some are short because of certain disorders, like Coleman, and some are short are because of normal inheritance of height, like me. My parents are short, and I’m short. We do not have a “child’s body.” We are adult minds in adult bodies, just short bodies. Quit referring to us as in any sense being children.
Incidentally, Gary Coleman has appeared on the Tonight show several times recently. He appears to be one of those minor celebrities that Jay Leno uses in sketches with some regularity. Here’s the IMDb entry on Coleman:
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Coleman,+Gary
He’s doing what most one-time TV stars who haven’t been able to land new roles have been doing - working a non-acting-related job, doing cameo appearances on TV shows, working as a product spokesman at trade shows, doing commercials. Just trying to get by, like most of us.
Wait! Who died? I just thought both “Willis” and “Kimberly” have both had their share of run-ins with the law concerning drug abuse and/or drug trafficing?
He’s currently appearing in an Orkin commercial. They do a lame spoof of some cop show with Coleman in it, and then a cockroach crawls across the screen whereupon the Orkin Man zaps it with pesticides.
You would think that actors would get the idea that when they get cast in roles that poke fun at their bad acting, they should hang it up and quit the business.
Dana Plato, aka Kimberly Drummond, died in 1999 from an accidental drug overdose. She was visiting her fiancee’s parents when it happened.
Dana Plato (“Kimberly”) died of a prescription-drug overdose in 1999.
I was there too, on the Sunday fair. He was actually getting a pretty good crowd going when I was there, though. One good thing to be said is that he has a good way of engaging the individual’s attention to make his pitch.
-Ashley