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Gary Coleman is cremated 3 weeks after death

By Alan Duke, CNN
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More drama over Gary Coleman's estate?
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Coleman was cremated Thursday
  • Ashes will be stored until will dispute is decided
  • Actor's will called for no funeral

(CNN) -- Gary Coleman's remains were cremated Thursday and his ashes will be locked away until a court decides who should get them, the special administrator of his estate said.

"The proceeding was conducted in accordance with Mr. Coleman's desires as expressed in his will, that no funeral service, wake, or other ceremony memorialize his passing," attorney Robert Jeffs said Thursday.

A Utah judge appointed Jeffs to control the estate while he decides a will dispute between ex-wife Shannon Price and former business associate Anna Gray.

Coleman divorced Price in 2008, but they were living together in Santaquin, Utah, when he suffered a fall at home last month and died two days later of a brain hemorrhage at the Provo, Utah, hospital.

Price, 24, claimed in a petition that she was still Coleman's common-law wife. She filed a handwritten document from 2007 that, if validated by the court, would give her Coleman's estate.

A will signed by Coleman in 2005 named Gray as executor and awarded all of his estate to the Portland, Oregon, woman.

It is expected to take Utah District Judge James Taylor several months to hold a trial to decide which document is Coleman's last legal will. Until then, Jeffs said he would lock the actor's ashes in a vault.

Coleman was best known as the wisecracking youngster Arnold on "Diff'rent Strokes" from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.

CNN's Brittany Kaplan contributed to this report.