VH1 Names Coleman No. 1 Child Star
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}VH1 has named (search)No. 1 on its list of the top 100 child stars ever. "Home Alone" star Macaulay Culkin (search) was second, and the Olsen twins were third.
Coleman, now 37, was the precocious star of the hit sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes (search)," which ran from 1978-86. Coleman played Arnold, who along with his older brother Willis (Todd Bridges) moves from Harlem to live with an affluent white family in Manhattan.
In 2003 Coleman joined 134 other candidates to run for governor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger successfully replaced the recalled Gov. Gray Davis, but Coleman got a few more minutes in the spotlight.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"This is really interesting and cool and I've been enjoying the heck out of it because I get to be intelligent, which is something I don't get to do very often," the 4-foot-8 actor said then.
Jodie Foster, Drew Barrymore, Emmanuel Lewis, Ron Howard, Corey Feldman, Maureen McCormick and Danny Bonaduce round out the top 10 on the VH1 list. Virtually every actor who made a splash in his or her younger days gets a mention, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixo, Brooke Shields, Alyssa Milano and Jason Bateman.
VH1 (search) will do a countdown with interviews and clips next week.