Gary Coleman files for bankruptcy

Former Diff'rent Strokes star Gary Coleman, who once was worth $18-million, has filed for bankruptcy.

Coleman, 30, who once earned $70,000 an episode on the sitcom, blamed financial woes on his lifelong kidney problems, mismanagement of his money and settlement of a 1993 lawsuit over his earnings.

Coleman filed for bankruptcy protection at federal court in Los Angeles.

Coleman last month paid a $400 fine for punching autograph-seeker Tracy Fields. He also was ordered to attend anger management classes.

The 4-foot-8 actor played Arnold on Diff'rent Strokes, which ran from 1978 to 1986.

Retrial under way in

talk show slaying case

A man went on trial Thursday in Pontiac, Mich., for the second time on charges he killed a gay acquaintance after the victim revealed a crush on him during a TV taping of a talk show.

Jerome Sabbota, the defense lawyer for Jonathan Schmitz, said the gay man, Scott Amedure, was to blame because he pursued his client to the point that Schmitz "lost it" three days after the taping of The Jenny Jones Show.

Schmitz was convicted of second-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison. But an appeals court overturned the verdict, saying the judge was wrong to bar defense lawyers from removing a juror before the trial began.

Prosecutors contend Schmitz calmly bought ammunition and a shotgun before shooting the defenseless Amedure twice in his home in March 1995.

Schmitz and Amedure flew to Chicago for the taping of a Jenny Jones segment about secret same-sex crushes on March 6, 1995. Amedure revealed his crush on Schmitz to the studio audience during the show, which was taped but never aired.

Copter pilot pays for

Streisand wedding woes

A helicopter pilot charged with flying too low over Barbra Streisand's wedding last summer pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace and was fined $500 and grounded for 30 days.

Robert Butler was also placed on two years' probation Wednesday and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

Butler was arrested Feb. 25 after a seven-month investigation by sheriff's investigators into complaints that a helicopter pilot carrying a photographer flew dangerously close to Streisand's outdoor wedding to James Brolin on July 1, 1998, in Malibu, Calif.

Wrestling show

gets a hold on Kiss

It will be a clash of an altogether different kind when the grease-painted rock band Kiss turns up on World Championship Wrestling's Monday Night Nitro Live next week. The band _ Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley _ is introducing its own wrestlers to take on Goldberg, Hulk Hogan, Sting and the rest of the WCW. The show can be seen Monday at 8 p.m. on the TNT cable network.

_ Compiled from Times wires.