It's hard to feel sorry for troubled actor Gary Coleman.
The 41-year-old television actor who shot to fame with his 1978-86 sitcom, "Diff'rent Strokes," had gone through a lifetime's worth of scandals by the time he discovered peaceful Utah County and decided to settle down there. (Actually, "settle" is not the word to use here.)
Others who have worked with him have told me he wanted to get away from the barrage of Hollywood paparazzi and find privacy in the rural community of Santaquin.
Yet it seems Coleman has landed himself in even more trouble since moving to Utah -- as if scandal clings to him like a magnet.
He has no one to blame but himself.
His latest entanglement happened this week. Coleman was arrested on a warrant for failing to appear at a court hearing for an earlier domestic-violence charge against his wife. He is scheduled to appear in Santaquin Justice Court on Feb. 8.
In 2008, Coleman also pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct during a scuffle with a man trying to take pictures of him at a Payson bowling alley. Earlier that year, he was cited for disorderly conduct after a heated argument erupted with his wife in Provo.
His arrest last week also stemmed from a domestic-disturbance call at his Santaquin home.
It's reasonable to think that moving to a far-off place like Santaquin, Utah, could lend a celebrity more privacy. But it's also reasonable that a celebrity like Coleman, who has enough troubled history to fill an "E! True Hollywood Story" miniseries, is going to draw some photographers and hangers-on, no matter where he lives.
That's the price he pays for his eight years on a hit sitcom and countless other movies he has appeared in since.
Sure, the man's an actor, and he's got to make a living being in the public eye, even if it has recently been in Z-grade fare, such as the movies "Midgets vs. Mascots" or "Church Ball."
But he's also been arrested for assaulting an autograph seeker, got into a confrontation with a driver while working as a security guard, and willingly appeared on "Divorce Court" with his wife, Shannon Price, whom he met on the set of "Church Ball."
It seems Gary Coleman is, like many child actors, now going down the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." But it's a road much of his own making.
I'm sure it's tempting for celebrities to always blame their notoriety and the people who latch onto them for a piece of that fame. There are many ways Coleman could handle that. He just always seems to choose the way that gets him into trouble.
