August 28, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Robin Dashwood
Culture Representation: The documentary film “Gary” features a group of white and African American people discussing the life and career of actor Gary Coleman, who died of complications from a head injury in 2010, at the age of 42.
Culture Clash: Coleman rose to massive fame as the star of the sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes,” but his life was plagued by health problems and turmoil in his personal relationships.
Culture Audience: “Gary” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of “Diff’rent Strokes” and are interested in watching documentaries about former child stars.
There seems to be a never-ending fascination with stories about former child stars who have tragic outcomes in their lives. “Gary” chronicles one of these stories. This watchable documentary about Gary Coleman doesn’t reveal anything new but it exposes how he had questionable judgment in choosing so-called “close friends” who gained financially from him. The movie needed more investigation about crime allegations. The only people who will be surprised by anything in this documentary are those who are unaware of all the previous media coverage about Coleman’s personal problems and his 2010 death at the age of 42.
The cause of Coleman’s death was a head injury, which happened in his home in Santaquin, Utah. He was taken off life support after being in a coma for two days at a hospital in Provo, Utah. A medical examiner’s report and a police investigation ruled that the cause of Coleman’s death was accidental. His ex-wife Shannon Price, who was still living with Coleman after their divorce, has maintained her story that Coleman’s injury was caused by him falling down the stairs in their home. She says that she was in another room at the time that he fell down the stairs.
Directed by Robin Dashwood, “Gary” has a major advantage that other news reports and documentaries about Coleman don’t have: The “Gary” documentary features interviews with just about everyone who was very close to Coleman in his life, including rare interviews with his parents Willie Coleman and Sue Coleman, who were estranged from Gary for years because of accusations that they stole money from him when they were managing his earnings. Price is also interviewed, as well as some of Gary’s friends and former colleagues. The documentary also has audio and video clips of archival interviews that Gary did.
Dion Mial, a former Michael Jackson impersonator, is the friend who gets the most screen time in the documentary. Mial met Gary when Gary was 10, and Mial was 14. Their friendship lasted for the rest of their lives, even after Gary moved on to a new set of friends when he relocated from California to Utah in the mid-2000s. In the documentary, Mial talks very fondly of Gary and shows how he has kept a lot of Gary’s personal possessions in storage in his garage.
Gary’s former agent Victor Perillo, who represented Gary from 1975 to 1987, is interviewed in the documentary. Perillo, like many others who knew Gary as a child, describe him as unusually mature and funny for his young age. Gary got his first significant break as an actor by starring in a Harris Bank commercial in 1977. It led to guest appearances on sitcoms such as “The Jeffersons” and “Good Times.” And then came his breakthrough starring role on the TV comedy series “Diff’rent Strokes,” which was on the air from 1978 to 1986.
Diff’rent Strokes,” which was created by Jeff Harris and Bernie Kukoff, was about two orphaned brothers in New York City—Arnold Jackson (played by Gary Coleman) and Willis Jackson (played by Todd Bridges)—who are adopted by wealthy businessman Phillip Drummond (played by Conrad Bain), who employed the Jackson brothers’ widowed mother as a housekeeper for many years. The mother of Arnold and Willis had asked on her deathbed for Phillip to adopt her sons. Phillip is a widower whose daughter Kimberly (played by Dana Plato) is raised with Arnold and Willis. (Plato died of a drug overdose in 1999, at the age of 34. Bain died in 2013, at age 89.)
“Diff’rent Strokes” was groundbreaking for being the first primetime American TV series about an interracial adoptive family. (The Jackson brothers were African American, and the Conrads were white.) “Diff’rent Strokes” co-star Bridges and “Diff’rent Strokes” casting director Eve Brandstein, who are interviewed separately in the “Gary” documentary, say that “Diff’rent Strokes” got some complaints and hate mail from white viewers and black viewers who didn’t like seeing this type of interracial family on TV. Coincidentally, Gary (who was born in 1968, in Zion, Illinois) was adopted in real life, but he was not raised with any siblings.
Bridges, who says that Gary was a like a younger brother to him, comments on the accusation that Phillip Drummond was a “white savior” character: “It wasn’t that it was a white savior there. It was just a man trying to save two kids from ending up being on the streets. No matter what the hate mail was on both sides, we knew what we were doing was right. The thing that our show proved was that love conquers all.”
“Diff’rent Strokes” made Gary a huge star around the world. His catch phrase from the show (which he would deliver with a playful pout) was “Whatchu talkin’ about?” It was a line that Gary would come to hate in his adult years because people who met him always expected him to say that line, like a talking puppet.
Gary’s persona of being a “grown man in a little boy’s body” resulted from his kidney disease and medical treatment that stunted his growth (he was only 4’8″ as an adult) and made him have puffy cheeks. His mother Sue explains that Gary was born with a rare kidney disease and had a kidney transplant at the age of 5. The surgery didn’t stop his exuberance and energy level, says Sue: “Two weeks after the surgery, he was standing on his head.”
The immunosuppressant medication that Gary was given after the kidney transplant caused him to have the size of a child throughout his entire life. Gary would have painful dialysis treatments that also affected him. He also lived without any kidneys for the last 25 years of his life. Even with these health issues, Perillo remembers Gary being intensely focused on his work. Perillo says that as a child, Gary would watch episodes of “Diff’rent Strokes” and take notes.
Friends and former colleagues also describe Gary as having a big interest in writing fiction stories, especially about outer space. It was an interest he had from a young age and stayed with him for his entire life. The documentary never explains or mentions why Gary didn’t pursue success as a fiction writer when his career as an actor was on a decline.
Gary’s physical appearance made him famous, but it also prevented him from getting the types of roles he wanted to play, such as action heroes or villains. When he reached his teen years on “Diff’rent Strokes,” the show was still having him do storylines where he had to act like a pre-teen child. Gary openly expressed his frustration at not being able to have his Arnold Jackson character mature as Gary was doing in real life.
But as Gary got older, his ego problems got bigger. Gary became extremely difficult and demanding after becoming famous, according to former “Diff’rent Strokes” hair stylist Joan Stafford-Chaney. She puts it bluntly when talking about Gary’s change in attitude after he became a major star: “He went from being cute to ugly. He picked up all the ugliness from his dad.” Stafford-Chaney says, “Nobody wanted Willie on set because he created havoc.” She describes Willie as a bully who used Gary and Gary’s fame to make outrageous demands.
The documentary has conflicting accounts of how much Gary was pushed into doing work that put his health in jeopardy. Willie Coleman and Perillo both say that Gary was never over-worked. Perillo says that he turned down lucrative offers for Gary because Gary was undergoing dialysis. By contrast, Bridges says he saw many instances where Gary was dangerously pushed to the brink of extreme exhaustion by the people handling his business affairs.
Speaking of Gary’s business affairs, the documentary gives well-known and public details about the legal disputes between Gary and his parents, who still claim they did nothing deliberately wrong in mismanaging his money. In 1987, Gary fired his parents and his entire business team and hired Mial to be his manager. Mial says that Gary also cut himself off from almost all of the showbiz friends that Gary had at the time. The documentary doesn’t mention Gary’s failed and short-lived attempt at becoming a rapper when he and Mial teamed up as a musical duo for a 1987 single called “The Outlaw and the Indian,” which was released on 12″ vinyl and was a big flop.
In 1989, Gary sued his parents and his former business manager Anita DeThomas (who died in 2006) and accused them of stealing money from him. It’s estimated that Gary made about $18 million at the height of his fame, but he didn’t receive the vast majority of the money, which went mostly to people who worked for him, including his parents. The outcome of this lawsuit is mentioned in the documentary. Gary’s parents don’t have much to say about this lawsuit but seem to blame Mial for influencing Gary to turn against his parents. Willie is vehement that he and Sue had Gary’s best interests at heart, and he claims it was other people in Gary’s management team who were the unscrupulous ones.
In the documentary, Mial says Mial was the who was always looking out for Gary’s best interests. Mial claims Gary’s parents not only knew about the embezzlement but he says that Gary’s parents were also willing participants. Mial admits he was inexperienced at the time he became Gary’s manager, but he says that he was one of the few people whom Gary could trust. Years later, Mial stopped being Gary’s manager, but they remained close friends.
Gary is not presented as a saintly victim. He had a nasty temper and could act like an egotistical tyrant, according to what several people say in the documentary. There are also clips of Gary being difficult during interviews when he is asked questions that he doesn’t like. He had a love/hate relationship with his fame as an actor. According to Mial, Gary wanted to quit the entertainment business after “Diff’rent Strokes” ended. And yet, Gary never really permanently left showbiz, even when Gary complained and said he wanted to quit.
The documentary also doesn’t shy away from examples of Gary having a violent side to him. Price (who was married to Gary from 2007 to 2008) and other people in the documentary admit that she and Gary were physically abusive to each other during their relationship. She downplays this violence by describing it as something that can be expected when couples argue. Gary and Price were both arrested in 2009 for domestic violence against each other. The documentary includes photos of their arrest mug shots.
Former “Diff’rent Strokes” hair stylist Stafford-Chaney says Gary once rudely told her that he wanted to slap her, and she stood up for herself and told him she would hit him back in self-defense. Stafford-Chaney says that although Gary found fame and fortune in comedy, “He wasn’t happy.” Mial hints that Gary had a tendency to indulge in self-pity: “He constantly referred to himself as ‘God’s punching bag.'” Mial said at the lowest points of Gary’s life, Gary had suicidal thoughts and depression. However, the documentary also points out that a lot of Gary’s misery came from his own terrible actions and his own bad choices.
As expected, the documentary has a section about Gary’s 1998 arrest in California, for assaulting a fan named Tracy Fields. She asked for his autograph, he refused her request, and when she commented on his “has-been” status, he punched her in the eye. Gary was working as a security guard at the time but was off-duty when the assault happened. Gary pleaded no contest and received a 90-day suspended jail sentence. He was also ordered to pay Fields’ $1,665 hospital bill and to take anger management classes. The late 1990s was also a rough period for Gary financially: In 1999, he filed for bankruptcy.
Price is presented in the documentary as the biggest villain in Gary’s life, because several of his friends and associates believe that she is a greedy gold digger who hasn’t been honest about what caused Gary’s head injury that led to his death. Price met Gary in 2005, when she was an extra on the Utah set of his movie “Church Ball,” released in 2006. She says that Gary immediately flirted with her and asked for her phone number. On their first date, she says she was flattered because he brought her takeout food from Olive Garden, a low-priced Italian restaurant. Soon after making “Church Ball” and getting involved with Price (who was in her late teens at the time), Gary moved permanently to Utah, where he lived with Price.
In the documentary, Price tries to portray herself as someone who was desperate for love because her mother died when she was a child. But several of Gary’s friends and associates say that Price’s main interest in Gary was money that she could get from him. Randy Rester, who was Gary’s Utah attorney, describes the relationship between Gary and Price as “tumultuous” with raging fights and tearful reconciliations. Rester also says that he is sad that Gary never followed through on talking about get a restraining order against Price.
Price explains why she agreed to be interviewed for this documentary: “This is probably the last that I can actually speak truth because I’ve had a lot to absorb over the years.” Price makes a telling comment when she says, “The thing I liked most about Gary was he treated me like a queen.” Nowhere in the documentary does she say that she loved Gary. She also defends her decision to take a selfie photo of herself and Gary while he was in a coma and dying in a hospital bed. This photo ended up being published by a tabloid. Mial says with disgust that Price probably sold the photo to this tabloid.
Brandi Buys, a friend of Gary’s in Utah, says that Gary once commented to her about Price: “All she wants is money.” Shiela Erickson Rolls, Gary’s Utah-based theatrical agent, says that Price was intensely interested in getting Gary to work as much as possible. “The only thing that mattered to Gary was Shannon,” Erickson Rolls adds. The documentary includes footage of Gary and Price arguing about his work and money in an unaired pilot episode of a reality show that the couple wanted to star in together.
Also interviewed in the documentary is Anna Gray, who says she and Gary dated for seven years, beginning in the late 1990s, when he lived in California. Gray says she moved in with Gary about two weeks after meeting him. According to her documentary interview, she and Gary never sexually consummated their non-monogamous relationship because he was self-conscious about some physical issues. Gray says she had planned to move to Utah to be with Gary until she found out that he had fallen in love with Price.
Gray describes the tension she felt the first time she met Price. Gray says she never trusted Price and thinks Gary died under suspicious circumstances. Darren Nord is another person interviewed in the documentary who is identified as Gary’s “friend” who doesn’t like Price, although it’s not mentioned how he met Gary and how long they were friends. Also interviewed is California-based attorney Drew Ryce.
Mial and other friends of Gary say there was “too much blood” at the scene for Gary to have fallen down the stairs. However, the documentary fails to follow up on those suspicions by investigating further. Did the “Gary” documentary filmmakers make any attempt to interview the medical examiner or any of the first responders who were at the injury scene? Were there any measurements taken of the stairs to prove or disprove the theory that a fall down those stairs couldn’t cause the head injury that Gary had? Those questions were never answered in the documentary.
Another flaw in the documentary is some of the timeline editing, which seems a bit jumbled and could have been told in a more cohesive way. Suspicions and online gossip about Price are rushed into the last 15 minutes of the documentary. She still denies having anything to do with causing Gary’s head injury. Price also defends her decision not to follow the 911 operator’s advice to try to stop Gary’s bleeding because Price says she was in shock at the time and wanted to wait until medical professionals arrived.
“Gary” is a letdown as a documentary when it just repeats speculation and innuendo about Gary’s death possibly not being accidental, without revealing any new or helpful information. There is also no information about whether or not Gary wanted or sought out professional help for his mental health issues. However, the documentary’s interviews are compelling to watch, even when some of the people who are interviewed seem to be less than honest and have no self-awareness of how dodgy they look. It’s too bad that Gary Coleman couldn’t be a better judge of character of the people he chose to be close to him.
Viewers watching this documentary will notice how many people in Gary’s life accuse each other of taking advantage of him or not looking out for his best interests. It’s a sad commentary on what type of life he had that the people who claim to be closest to him also have a lot of bitter in-fighting about who really cared about him or not. Some of the “friends” whom Gary let into his life seem more impressed with knowing Gary as a “celebrity” than knowing Gary as a person. The “Gary” documentary can be seen as a cautionary tale that fame isn’t as wonderful as it appears to be, especially when fame robs that person of having healthy and happy relationships.
Peacock will premiere “Gary” on August 29, 2024.
