• December 03, 2001
• Vol. 56
• No. 23

Silencing a Free Spirit

An Asthma Attack Kills Four Weddings and a Funeral's Charlotte Coleman

Barely zipped into a poufy party dress, Charlotte Coleman memorably opened the 1994 movie Four Weddings and a Funeral as she scrambled with Hugh Grant to make it to the church on time. In real life she could be just as quirky. Once, she arrived an hour late to meet TV producer Roderick Gilchrist and other pals. Her excuse? She was making a sympathy card for a woman whose mother had just died. "That was Charlotte," Gilchrist says. "Just when you wanted to shake her, she shook you."

Sadly, Coleman shocked her friends again on Nov. 14, for the last time. The 33-year-old actress died in her London apartment after suffering a catastrophic asthma attack. "I didn't even realize she was asthmatic," says casting agent John Hubbard. "It took us all by surprise."

Coleman, both of whose parents worked in show business, got an early start in acting—and acting up. A veteran of two successful British children's TV shows by age 11, she was expelled from one high school for smoking and drinking. "I was wild," she told Britain's Daily Telegraph. "I had my nose pierced at 14, shaved my head, then had a bluebird tattooed on my bottom when I was 15."

Still, her acting career flourished, peaking with Four Weddings, in which she played Grant's platonic roommate Scarlett. Hollywood beckoned, but the never-married actress opted for offbeat roles in small British films. "She had a goofball way about her, but that was just surface," says Gilchrist. "Underneath, she made you feel she was in some way very vulnerable."