Gary Coleman's 1999 will filed in Utah court
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Gary Coleman's will names a friend and former manager as executor of the late child star's estate and specifies that he wanted to be cremated.
The will was filed Tuesday in 4th District Court in Provo, where the 42-year-old Coleman died May 28 after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Coleman appointed friend Dion Mial as his executor.
Coleman says in the 1999 will that he wanted to be remembered in a wake conducted by people who had no financial ties to the star of the sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes."
The will was written years before Coleman met Shannon Price on a movie set in 2006. The couple married in 2007 and divorced in 2008.
A representative says Price believes she has a claim to the estate and planned to meet with her lawyer Tuesday. Although the couple was divorced, they still lived together in Santaquin, about 55 miles south of Salt Lake City. It was Price -- who was named in an advanced health care directive -- who ordered that Coleman be taken off of life support.
Price referred to Coleman as her husband when she called 911, saying Coleman had fallen and was bleeding severely from the back of his head.
Coleman was still conscious when he was taken to a hospital in Provo, but slipped into unconsciousness the next day and was placed on life support for a day.
Coleman starred for eight seasons on the sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes," starting in 1978. The tiny 10-year-old's "Whachu talkin' 'bout?" became a catch phrase in the show about two African-American brothers adopted by a wealthy white man. He played Arnold Jackson, the younger of the two brothers.