‘Gary’ tells the sad story of child star Gary Coleman
A new Peacock documentary looks at the tragic final years of the former Diff’rent Strokes star
The story of Gary Coleman was very typical of those of many child stars, especially of his vintage. He gained major fame at a young age, which became incredibly fleeting. He fought with his parents over money; he suffered from substance abuse, health problems, and public scandal and passed away at a relatively young age under questionable circumstances.
However, some aspects of Coleman’s story were more sui generis. He suffered from kidney disease, and treatment for it at a young age stunted his growth. He had a catchphrase- “What you talkin’ bout, Willis?” - that endured but which he ultimately grew to hate.
Coleman first surfaced with a guest appearance on Good Times, followed by a proto-Little Big League baseball TV movie called The Kid From Left Field, but then came Diff’rent Strokes.
Gary is a new documentary, debuting this week on Peacock, that tells Coleman’s entire story, leading up to the 2010 death that several talking heads in the film allege was murder.
The film, directed by Robin Dashwood, successfully conveys just what a big deal Coleman was back in the days of Diff’rent Strokes, a network sitcom that starred Coleman and Todd Bridges as a pair of Black boys adopted by a wealthy Park Avenue businessman (Conrad Bain).
It was not a Norman Lear show, but clearly in the Lear tradition — Bain had been a cast member on Maude — the show ran for eight seasons and combined character comedy with frequent “very special episodes.” Nancy Reagan once guest-starred to push the War on Drugs, as did Muhammad Ali.
All, however, were punctuated with that ever-present catchphrase.
Was Diff’rent Strokes what, today, would be described as a “white savior” narrative? Absolutely. But as Coleman’s old costar Bridges points out, that’s not the kind of thing that would get in the way of a show like that becoming a hit in the early ‘80s.
When Diff’rent Strokes ended, Coleman’s career went into eclipse. After all, as the film points out, due to his condition, he still looked like a kid, even though he was an adult, and that made finding acting gigs difficult.
Then, a series of tragedies befell the cast, to the point where Bridges is the only regular still alive. It also hit the news that Coleman had been robbed blind, both by his parents and unscrupulous managers.
Throughout the ‘90s and’ ‘aughts, Coleman was something of a sideshow act—he would pop up frequently on The Howard Stern Show, guest-star on The Simpsons, and even run for governor of California in that bizarro 2003 recall election that led to Arnold Schwarzenegger's election. Coleman’s candidacy was a joke, sponsored by the alt-weekly East Bay Express, although he finished 8th out of more than 100 candidates.
The Broadway musical Avenue Q included a character based on Coleman, which led him to threaten to sue.
Soon, Coleman was only ever in the news for ugly things like arrests, his fights with his parents, and his continuing health problems, which led up to his death at age 42 in 2010. Archival footage is marshaled to show that Coleman was suffering terribly and likely caused terrible suffering for others throughout the last 25 or so years of his life.
The documentary covers some of this and not other things — there’s no mention, for some reason, of the campaign for governor or Avenue Q — and it also doesn’t raise Molly Shannon’s allegation, from her memoir published after he died, that Coleman had once sexually harassed her. Eventually, it pivots to his death, which involved a fall down the stairs, a seizure, and a hematoma.
Shannon Price, who at the time of his death was divorced from Coleman but still living with him, comes under suspicion. She appears in the film to defend herself, while several other interviewees come right out and accuse her of negligence if not outright murder.
It reminded me of Roadrunner, the Anthony Bourdain documentary, in which almost every interviewee makes clear that they openly despise the subject’s late-in-life romantic partner and trash her mercilessly in a way that feels gross. I was left unconvinced that Coleman was murdered despite the best efforts of some of the people in this film.
Despite that and some omissions, Gary is a fairly decent telling of Gary Coleman’s sad story.