Child star Gary Coleman dies at 42

The actor Gary Coleman, who soared to fame in the 1970s as the child star of TV sitcom Diff'rent Strokes before suffering a huge reversal of fortune, has died from a brain haemorrhage, aged 42.

Staff at a hospital in Provo, Utah, where he was taken earlier this week after suffering a fall at his nearby home, said Coleman's wife, Shannon, 26, decided to switch off his life-support machine after doctors said he was unlikely to regain consciousness.

Coleman was briefly the best-paid actor in television, after he was cast in Diff'rent Strokes at the age of 10. He played Arnold Jackson, a working-class child who was adopted by a wealthy socialite, and was famed for his catchphrase "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout?"

At the height its success, his salary was $64,000 a week. But he lost almost all of his $18m fortune in a legal battle with his parents.