Gary Coleman, known for his role as Arnold Jackson in the 1980s sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, lived for decades without any kidneys, a bombshell documentary reveals.
The pint-sized actor – who died in 2010 at age 42 – became one of the biggest celebrities of his day, but had a troubled life since birth.
He’s the subject of a new Peacock film, Gary,” detailing his life in front and behind the scenes as an iconic child star.
Born with a congenital kidney defect and later diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis – a disease which causes irreversible internal scarring – Coleman received a kidney transplant at the age of five. But by the time he reached 17, his body had reportedly “absorbed” the transplanted organ.
“From Dec 31 of 1985 until his death, Gary lived without a single kidney in his body. He then started on dialysis,” his former manager and longtime friend Dion Mial says in the doc.
“I can recall showing up to set one day and Gary was in the middle of the scene, completed the scene, bent over and threw up,” he shares. “He fundamentally never knew what it was to be fully healthy.”
One of the side effects from the immunosuppressant drugs he had to take following his kidney transplant was the stunting of his growth, Mial explains.
Coleman could not grow past 4-feet, 8-inches tall (142.2cm), which hindered his popular character from growing alongside Diff’rent Strokes co-stars Todd Bridges and the late Dana Plato.
Coleman’s mother, Edmonia Sue, is also featured in the Robin Dashwood-directed documentary, which debuted on Aug 26 on the US streaming service.
She recalls his recovery from the transplant as a sweeping success, saying, “two weeks after he had his surgery, he was standing on his head.”
In a segment of archival audio, Coleman himself says: “Even when I was five, I was the do or die, never say die, ‘I’ll be back’ kind of person. That was the kind of kid I was.”
While he outlived the initial prognosis of dying at 12 years old, Coleman had to undergo dialysis three days per week, four hours per day for the rest of his life.
In 2009, he began to suffer seizures and died a year later after a fall in his Provo, Utah, home left him with a brain hemorrhage. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
