Punchline dies; trailed Larry Flynt in California governor's race.

He was spotted by an agent for the television producer Norman Lear and brought to Hollywood for a project that never came to fruition, a new version of the “Our Gang” comedies. Instead he was cast in “Diff’rent Strokes” and was soon earning thousands of dollars per episode. At his peak he earned $3 million a year.

But after the series ended, his career spiraled downward. He made 20 or so television appearances over the next the two decades, as well as a handful of feature films. (His last was the 2009 “Midgets vs. Mascots,” a broad comedy.) But he also tried earning a living outside show business, even working as a security guard at one point. In 2003 he was one of 135 candidates in the carnival-like California gubernatorial recall election; he came in eighth, right after Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler.

Mr. Coleman’s difficulties are parodied in the Tony Award-winning musical “Avenue Q,” in which a character named Gary Coleman is the superintendent of a run-down building in an undesirable neighborhood. Mr. Coleman talked about suing the show’s producers but never did.