Update: Gary Coleman, who was the child star of TV show “Diff’rent Strokes,” has died
at age 42, a publicist says.
ABC News reported this morning that Coleman “has slipped into a coma” and is currently on life support. Coleman suffered an intracranial hemorrhage according to the ABC report, and remains unconscious from the injury.
Gary Coleman, the 42-year-old former child star, suffered a head injury during a fall and has undergone emergency surgery. According to CNN, he is currently in critical condition in a Utah hospital. Coleman’s brother-in-law told TMZ that Coleman is listed in critical condition, saying he was taken from his home in Utah to the hospital around 12:50 p.m. Wednesday. Per the Associated Press, Coleman has lived in Utah since 2005, when he moved there to star in a comic film called “Church Ball,” which is based on the basketball leagues formed by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Coleman and his wife, Shannon Price, met on the set of the film and married in 2007. The couple has most frequently been in the press not for their accomplishments in film but due to multiple reports of domestic violence.
In addition to marital difficulties, TMZ reports that in February 2010 while shooting a TV interview for “The Insider,” Coleman suffered from a seizure. At the time, Dr. Drew was with the actor as part of a panel and assisted him until emergency personnel arrived. The site also reported that Coleman was hospitalized in January for what might also have been a seizure.
In regards to this most recent hospitalization, Gary Coleman’s manager states that there currently is nothing significant to report but that information will be forth coming.
A Nov. 19, 1979, file photo of comedian-actress Lucille Ball, left, posing with actor Gary Coleman during a break in filming “The Lucille Ball Special."
Coleman, who became famous for playing diminutive Arnold Drummond on the TV series “Diff’rent Strokes” in the 1980’s, has a congenital kidney disease and receives frequent dialysis. As a child he suffered from a congenital kidney disease caused by focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (an autoimmune destruction and alteration of the kidney), which halted his growth at an early age, leading to his small stature. He underwent two kidney transplants, one in 1973 and one in 1984. Just last year, Coleman had heart surgery which was complicated by pneumonia, according to his attorney Randy Kester.
