| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| ramona |
Posted - 03/08/2004 : 16:58:49
They found him - very sad. I'll say a prayer for his family tonight.
From USA Today -
Body of missing actor found in East River
NEW YORK (AP) — Actor-writer Spalding Gray, who laid bare his life in a series of acclaimed monologues like Swimming to Cambodia while scoring big-screen success in Kate and Leopold and The Paper, was confirmed dead on Monday.
The body of Gray, 62, was pulled out of the East River off Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on Sunday, two months after he walked out of his Manhattan apartment and disappeared.
The city medical examiner confirmed through dental records and X-rays on Monday that the body was that of Gray.
The cause of his death was still under investigation, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner. But Gray was known to have been deeply troubled and had attempted suicide before.
His family told police he was last seen Saturday Jan. 10. Throughout his disappearance, his wife, Kathleen Russo, had held out scant hope that he might still be alive.
"Everyone that looks like him from behind, I go up and check to make sure it's not him," Russo said in a phone interview with The Associated Press about a week ago. "If someone calls and hangs up, I always do star-69. You're always thinking, 'maybe.'"
Gray's riveting live performances generally featured only a desk and a glass of water as props. Usually wearing his trademark plaid flannel shirt, the performer would never move from the desk as he read in a soft, New England-flecked accent.
In more than a dozen monologues starting in 1979, Gray told audiences about his childhood, Sex and Death to the Age 14 ; his adventures as a young man, Booze, Cars and College Girls ; and his struggles as an actor, A Personal History of the American Theater. Many were published in book form and several were made into films.
"The man may be the ultimate WASP neurotic, analyzing his actions with an intensity that would be unpleasantly egomaniacal if it weren't so self-deprecatingly funny," Associated Press Drama Critic Michael Kuchwara wrote in 1996. "He questions everything and ends up more exhausted than satisfied."
Gray's greatest success was his Obie-winning monologue Swimming to Cambodia, which recounted in part his movie role opposite Sam Waterston in The Killing Fields. The monologue, developed over two years of performance, became a film directed by Jonathan Demme.
His book Gray's Anatomy, about his struggles with a serious eye problem, was also made into a film.
Gray turned a midlife crisis into It's a Slippery Slope, a 1997 monologue that mingled ski stories with tales of his new role as a father.
He also had an active career in Hollywood, with roles in films including David Byrne's True Stories,Beaches and The Paper— 38 film appearances in all. In the 1993 Steven Soderbergh film King of the Hill, he played an eccentric bachelor who kills himself.
On Broadway, he starred as the stage manager in the 1989 revival of Our Town, a production that won a Tony Award for best revival. In 2000, he was in the less-acclaimed revival of Gore Vidal's 1960 political drama, The Best Man.
But Gray's life in recent years was marred by tragedy and depression.
A horrific head-on car crash during a 2001 vacation in Ireland left him disheartened and in poor health, and he tried jumping from a bridge near his Long Island home in October 2002.
He was twice hospitalized for depression after the crash, and his suicide attempt canceled the run of a new solo piece, Black Spot.
Gray, whose mother committed suicide when she was 52, spoke openly about considering the same fate. In a 1997 interview, he even provided an epitaph for his tombstone: "An American Original: Troubled, Inner-Directed and Cannot Type."
Gray was born on June 5, 1941, one of three sons of a WASP couple in Barrington, R.I. His mother suffered a pair of nervous breakdowns, committing suicide in 1967 after the second one.
Prior to her death, Gray began pursuing an acting career at Emerson College in Boston. His first efforts at one-man storytelling began with a select audience: his co-workers when he was a dishwasher. The compulsively self-obsessed Gray would regale the other employees with a blow-by-blow account of his day's events.
He landed his first stage role, playing a psychotic in a summer stock production of The Curious Savage, when a combination of his dyslexia and nerves produced an all too real audition.
His mother's suicide sent Gray into a lengthy period of depression that ended with his own nervous breakdown. He worked in underground theater in Manhattan, eventually co-founding the Wooster Group in 1979. There, he wrote an autobiographical trilogy of plays about life in Rhode Island.
His first monologue was Sex and Death to the Age 14, mingling events like the bombing of Hiroshima with the death of childhood pets. Gray was hailed as a new brand of performance artist, working alone on a minimalist set.
In 1983, Gray won the role of an American ambassador's aide in The Killing Fields, the story of the bond between a New York Times reporter and a Cambodian photographer.
The resulting monologue, Swimming to Cambodia, was widely hailed, with Washington Post reviewer David Richards observing, "Talking about himself — with candor, humor, imagination and the unfailingly bizarre image — he ends up talking about all of us."
In addition to his writing, Gray enjoyed skiing and drinking; he once told an interviewer that a 6 p.m. bloody Mary was a staple of his routine. But Gray plunged back into despondency following his car accident, a crash during a vacation to mark his 60th birthday.
Gray, who was not wearing a seat belt, suffered head trauma and a broken hip.
Gray is survived by Russo; three children; and a brother, Rockwell Gray, an English professor in St. Louis.
(P.S. I looked for the already existing topic about Mr. Gray but couldn't find it and search timed out. Grrr. Feel free to link if anyone can locate it.)
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"Music does not drag me down. Music lifts me up." - Frank Black |
| 11 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| ramona |
Posted - 03/11/2004 : 14:06:43
I know! I was really sad too about Robert Pastorelli who just died. He played Elden on Murphy Brown and he was only in his early 50's I think. Stupid death.
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"The problem with her and I is that, you know the song Pretty Woman? I prefer the Roy Orbison version and she prefers the Van Halen version, and this has been the source of our pain." - Frank Black, on his divorce |
| GypsyDeath |
Posted - 03/11/2004 : 10:24:18
ahh, man, this is a sad day, everyone keeps dying!
Boys go to Jupiter, Get more stupider,
Girls go to Mars, Become rock stars
Wanna fuck and fight in the basement? |
| Carl |
Posted - 03/11/2004 : 10:19:21
I remember the 'Spalding Gray Is Missing' post, but I don't think I'd ever heard of him. But just a few weeks ago I read a newspaper article about him, which gave a brief description of his life and career...I think the journalist asumed he was dead in the story. It's sad to hear, even if I'm not familiar with his work. |
| darwin |
Posted - 03/09/2004 : 21:13:05
You're quite welcome. |
| jimmy |
Posted - 03/09/2004 : 19:41:25
Yes, thank you, darwin. |
| ramona |
Posted - 03/09/2004 : 06:51:01
I'm so glad you're here to tell us he knew exactly what he was doing. Thank you for explaining mental illness so clearly to us mere mortals.
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"Music does not drag me down. Music lifts me up." - Frank Black |
| jimmy |
Posted - 03/09/2004 : 04:57:18
So he was mentally ill- he knew exactly what he was doing and he was a douchebag to kill himself when he had young children. |
| darwin |
Posted - 03/08/2004 : 21:41:21
He was mentally ill. He obviously wasn't being rational.
I wonder if he had tried killing himself several times before, why wasn't more done to stop it from happening again. But, I don't know what was done. Maybe the did all that they could. Very sad. |
| jimmy |
Posted - 03/08/2004 : 21:28:29
They didn't mention it- but "Monster in a Box", a monalogue movie from 1991 is definitly worth watching. One of the indipendent film stations played it for a while and if I was flipping around and it was on I'd always watch it.
Normally I don't have a problem with people killing themselves, but he's a douchebag to do it when he had young children. |
| apl4eris |
Posted - 03/08/2004 : 21:08:53
Thank you, ramona.
His monologues and work with Laurie Anderson made me feel like I knew him. It was like having him in your living room, and he was so funny. One of the world's best storytellers. It's really sad to know he's gone, especially in that way.
here's the original post
666 Dunkin' Donuts, a 20-inch veggie pizza from Gumby's, extra jalapenos on the side. And a case of Asahi Dry - |
| positivelySlime |
Posted - 03/08/2004 : 19:34:20
I was really dreading confirmation of this.
Hope he finally found his peace.
R.I.P., Spald |
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