With his angelic good looks and intense personality, Gary Coleman was the most famous child star of his time.
Fans were heartbroken when the popular actor from the 1970s, who played Arnold Jackson on the US sitcom Different Strokes, died at age 42 from a tragic fall in his kitchen.
Astonished when Gary’s ex-wife, with whom he still lived, was blamed.
Shannon Price, who is very upset, says that she found Coleman naked and bleeding on the kitchen floor of their Utah home.
She told the 911 operator, “I can’t be here with all this blood,” while she was talking quickly.
“I’m gagging…””I don’t want to be traumatized nowadays.”
Despite Gary’s wishes to be kept alive for two weeks in case of a medical emergency, Shannon did not go to the hospital with him and turned off his life support machine two days after he fell.
Now, a new documentary looks into what happened to Gary on the day he was found on May 10, 2010, mortally hurt.
Shannon remains defiant, telling the show’s producers, “I would never, ever hurt my husband.”
“Tragic end to a legacy”
She then admits that she hit Coleman, who was only 4ft 8in, saying, “I slapped him a couple of times, I mean nothing major, nothing warning.”
A lot of people hit and smack each other. There are people who do it.
To deny it is crazy.
The fact is that some people say, “She killed Gary.” He hurt himself when she pushed him down the stairs. And that hurts me a lot.
Peacock’s documentary, simply called Gary, features the actor’s lawyer talking about how the couple had a “tumultuous relationship” because Price made fun of her husband’s size. Friends of the actor say there are still “questions to be answered” about his death.
After selling a picture of her dying husband, Shannon was called “depraved” by one person. She explained her choice by saying “people needed to see what he went through.”
A police investigation into Gary’s fall found no wrongdoing, and the coroner called it a “accident.”
However Shannon has felt compelled to deny having any part in it over and over again.
Millions of people around the world used to love the actor, and his death has been shrouded in mystery and drama.
As Arnold, one of two orphans adopted by a rich white man, Gary won the part of Arnold when he was only ten years old.
Many famous people, including boxer Muhammad Ali, actor Mr. T from the 1980s, and First Lady Nancy Reagan at the time, attended the show as guests.
Before, Gary was the highest-paid child actor ever, making £75,000 per episode.
Despite all the glitz and glamour, his life was also sad.
His kidney disease was present at birth, and the medicine he needed to stay alive slowed his growth.
Gary had two kidney transplants when he was five and seventeen, but they didn’t work, and he ended up on dialysis for 25 years overall.
Terry Bridges, Gary’s co-star, says Gary’s dad Willie told him, “You’ve got people depending on you,” which made him perform even though he was sick.
Distinct Strokes ended in 1986 after eight years on the air. Gary had a hard time finding work after being stuck in the role.
He hated his famous catchphrase, “What you talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” which he used to insult Todd, who played his brother on screen.
He promised himself that he would never work in show business again because he was depressed, but things were about to get worse when he sued his mother Sue and father Willie for loss of earnings.
“Sugar’s punching bag”
Coleman found a hole in his finances and thought that his parents and economic advisor were mismanaging them.
Eventually won the £900,000 lawsuit involving his own parents when he took the case to court in 1989.
Later, they tried to get a conservatorship like Britney Spears’, which would have given them full control over their son, but the judge ignored their request.
According to Gary’s best friend Dion Mial, “Gary felt not only betrayed but completely abandoned by the people who were closest to him.”
Willie and Sue have continually denied knowingly misusing the money. In the documentary, Gary’s friend Dion was called a “demon” by his dad.
Although Gary was depressed and had made suicide threats, he met Anna Gray in 1997 while she was working at a California Blockbuster store and the two of them moved in together.
While they were together, Anna says Gary never wanted sex but “was very romantic and liked to hold hands, kiss, and cuddle.”
Working as an actor was almost nonexistent, and Anna says that people treated him like a “penny arcade” by asking him over and over to repeat his famous catchphrase.
Additionally, he hated being asked for autographs.
After a fight in 1998 with a fan who saw him working as a security guard in a California mall, he pleaded not guilty in court.
The following year, Gary started the bankruptcy process.
Their relationship ended, and he started dating Shannon Price in 2007.
They met while Gary was filming Church Ball in Utah and she was working as an extra.
When they got married in 2007, on a remote hilltop in Nevada’s Valley of Fire State Park, he was almost 40 and she was 22.
Couple had problems right away, and in a TV show clip that wasn’t shown, Gary says Shannon only wants his money.
Shortly after they got married, he was arrested for disorderly conduct after having a “heated argument” with her in public.
Attorney Randy Kester for the actor told the producers of the upcoming UK movie Gary that the two had a “tumultuous” relationship.
Somewhat he said suggested that he wished the star had cut Shannon out of his life after they broke up instead of staying with her.
“On the flip of a dime, they would become raging, yelling, demeaning, disparaging,” he said.
“She did something every day, making trouble, putting down his manhood, lowballing his size, and sometimes calling him a failure.”
“I always thought that one day he would tell me, ‘I’m done, I want her out of my life,'” she said.
I felt bad for him because he didn’t make it to that point.
We talked about getting a restraining order more than once because Gary just couldn’t take it anymore.
In May 2010, Gary had just finished his morning dialysis session when Shannon asked him to put pizza in the oven. Shannen said she was upstairs.
She told the documentary that she heard a bang and went downstairs to find the star on the kitchen floor with a gunshot wound to the head.
In a scary 911 call, the operator asks Price to make sure Coleman puts pressure on his wound. Price says, “No I can’t, it’s all bloody. He’s not responding.”
The person who answers the call is told by Shannon that she is having seizures and does not want to be “traumatized right now.”
She was acting strangely, and Gary’s ex-girlfriend Anna Gray said, “She was more worried about herself than the person she was calling 911 for.” In my opinion, her actions say a lot.
According to Brandi Buys, another close friend, “Personally, in my opinion, I don’t think that he fell…”I need to say a lot, but I don’t know what I can say without getting sued. Coleman “didn’t have to fall that far to cause such a serious injury,” explained Coleman’s best friend Dion.
“It all leads to more questions,” he said. Shannon went back inside after seeing him get loaded into the back of an ambulance. Gary was no one else around.
In response, Shannon says she didn’t want to go with her husband because she thought he would be “stitched up” at the hospital and then sent home.
They said they loved each other on the phone while he was getting treatment, and she said she was shocked to later get a call saying that Gary, who had an intracranial hemorrhage, had passed out.
According to the actor’s paperwork, he wanted to be cared for for at least two weeks before his life support was turned off in case he got really sick.
In addition, Shannon says it said machines could be turned off if nothing else could be done.
“Going in there and saying everything I needed to say—’I love you, I’m going to miss you, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and you really were loved and cared for,'” she said, remembering the moment she said goodbye to her husband.
There was nothing easier for me than deciding to turn off his life support.
Debbie, Gary’s best friend, was horrified when Shannon sold pictures of him in the hospital to a US tabloid magazine.
He stated, “It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen someone do to another person.”
Coleman often called himself “God’s punching bag” throughout his life.
‘Gary’s life was full of many heartbreaking disappointments. There were many people who let him down.