Spalding Grey Confirmed Dead

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From the NY Times:

Spalding Gray, the wry monologuist and actor who transformed his personal experiences, fascinations and traumas into such acclaimed pieces as "Swimming to Cambodia" and "Monster in a Box,"was confirmed dead today, two months after his wife reported him missing, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office said. He was 62.

Mr. Gray's body was pulled from the East River near Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on Sunday and was identified through dental records, said the spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove. The authorities did not provide the cause of death.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/03/08/obituaries/08cnd-gray.184.jpg

― 57 7th (calstars), Monday, 8 March 2004 23:45 (twenty-one years ago)

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 8 March 2004 23:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Guess he didn't make it to Cambodia...

― andy, Tuesday, 9 March 2004 00:00 (twenty-one years ago)

tragic - terrible news.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 00:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Very sad.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 00:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Bad news, indeed.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 00:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I find this very sad. But I'm not sure why.

Four or five summers ago on Martha's Vineyard, I saw S. Gray waiting in line with some friends of his to get their car on the ferry. He was, unfortunately, wearing only a speedo. This was not a good look for him, although he was in reasonable shape for someone his age.

My friends and I kind of chuckled, "Look, there's Spalding Gray. Kinda weird." But then we all acknowledged that anything we'd seen of his was really, really good.

It's too bad, and makes me rather sad. But again, I'm not sure why. I didn't know him.

― Skottie, Tuesday, 9 March 2004 01:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Good lord everyone is dying

― Aaron A., Tuesday, 9 March 2004 03:37 (twenty-one years ago)

i read the book (Cambodia) years ago. but what was going on? not looking for dirt exactly, but just wanting to know...was he ok? was ths intentional? was there a new york story with this i don't know about?

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 03:43 (twenty-one years ago)

He'd been struggling with severe depression for a long time, and had attempted suicide a few times earlier.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 03:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I feel very sorrowful about this. Hopefully his soul is finally at peace.

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 04:01 (twenty-one years ago)

mega mega :(

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 04:31 (twenty-one years ago)

This is very sad. In a way, it is more personal than many other celebritys passing because of the autobiographical nature of his monologues, as his mother's suicide and personal fears get laid out in the films. That being said, those movies were also quite funny and came across as honest.

― earlnash, Tuesday, 9 March 2004 04:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Apparently, he saw the movie Big Fish before he killed himself. make of this what you will.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 11:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Surely his soul is writhing in eternal hell, Dee?

(or am I just assuming you're a Xtian because of your conservatism?)

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 11:54 (twenty-one years ago)

What an ignorant thing to say, Mark.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 11:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Hardly. It's pretty much the thing for suicides, I hear (and surely as an attempted suicide he'd already booked his place). That's Christianity for you.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 11:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Mark, Dee is from a Catholic family. Aren't you as well?

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 11:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Nope.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 11:58 (twenty-one years ago)

(snarky comments on religion are not appropriate for this thread - sorry about bringing the subject up)

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 11:59 (twenty-one years ago)

bald cunt

― the doomsayer, Tuesday, 9 March 2004 12:10 (twenty-one years ago)

What, *after* the apology? You people.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 12:11 (twenty-one years ago)

There was a big article about Grey's recent difficulties in New York magazine a month or so ago - after a car crash in Ireland, he suffered memory lapse, terrible depression, mood swings, etc. He had been making gestures toward suicide for a month or two and had been coaxed down off the railing of a ship just a few weeks before he went missing. This is terrible news to me; his work was full of that self-renewing zest for The Great Big World And All Its Hidden Treasures that always inspires and moves me when it shows its face, which is rare enough.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 15:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I was a huge fan of Spalding Grey, actually (I've got most of his books, saw him perform "Grey's Anatomy" at Lincoln Center, tracked down his CD, even prized a VHS copy of "The Terrors of Pleasure"...to my mind his most entertaining recorded monologue...off eBay), but I have to say....I find it very hard to forgive suicide. Yes, I know...it involves a depth of depression that I will never -- god willing -- experience nor understand myself, but I can't help thinking it's the cruelest, most selfish thing one could possibly do.....especially in this instance (I know he'd threatened numerous times before, but this time he left no note, leaving things so open-ended). I know it plays a huge part in his life (i.e. his mother), but one would hope he'd have learned from such experiences. The man has three children, most if not all of them still in the single digits. What a shitty thing to do to them.

I have a friend who is simillarly obsessed with suicide, and it is a constant topic of conversation/fascination for him (he too often "jokes" about taking "the big swim"), and I find it horribly distasteful and selfish. His wife and mother would be crushed beyond comprehension were he to make good on it, but to hear him discuss it, it doesn't even register as a concern with him. Once again -- I know I'm addressing it as if it's something one can get over like a cold or the breakup of a relationship, it's obviously a disorder far deeper than that, but that just seems like such a cop-out argument to me. How far gone must one be to not realize the extent of emotional damage such a stunt is going to cause?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

he did suffer an injury to his head (in a terrible car crash) that may have contributed, alex.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 16:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean I agree with you in principle though.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

This might be the article John mentions: it's certainly great

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9787

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 16:35 (twenty-one years ago)

The problem is that you don't understand, Alex. (Not meant as an attack.) Depression is not realizing there was/will ever a better day, not realizing you are the solution to the problems,... As much as I can understand you (especially in regard to children), I can also understand why someone wants to end his/her life.

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

also suicidal ppl believe that their friends/loved ones don't really love them and wouldn't miss them if they were gone. suicidal ppl are convinced they're a burden to everyone and are doing them a favor by dying. so it's a selfless act in their mind, anyway.

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 16:42 (twenty-one years ago)

far gone must one be to not realize the extent of emotional damage such a stunt is going to cause?

Very far gone. Unfortunately, many of us are all too familiar with these lowest of lows.

Anytime I hear about someone who has struggled with depression and suicidal impulses finally going through with it. . .it really brings me down. I worry that someday I will also not be able to pull myself back anymore.

― Viva La Sam (thatgirl), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 17:35 (twenty-one years ago)

It's both possible and healthy to contain multiple responses to suicide. Alex is right: it's a shitty, mean, very hostile thing to do. But it also indicates a level of pain and involuntary myopia whose very existence can't but evoke horror and pity: how much agony must a person who'd taken genuine delight in his family, the world, etc., have been in to do something so horrible? Donald Justice's excellent poem "For the Suicides" is worthwhile reading, anyhow.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 20:37 (twenty-one years ago)

It's very, very sad, if not unexpected. I guess it's sort of a relief to his family to know for sure.

We saw him speak at Bumbershoot not long after his Irish car accident; he was clearly in trouble at the time.

Depression is a terrible, potentially deadly illness, the worst symptom of which is a belief that it can't get any better. Very sorry to see it get another person.

― Layna Andersen (Layna Andersen), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 01:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I read his first fiction book in high school, cuz I loved him in True Stories. I really enjoyed it but it's sad to see things end this way. He'll be missed.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 01:52 (twenty-one years ago)

i remember turning on bravo or something back in high school, and there was this guy sitting at a table, talking, flmed from medium distance, head-on, obviously staged, kinda corny, and i started to watch it for a bit. and before i knew it 2 hours had passed.

i don't think i really know much about him when it comes right down to it, but i think i understand him these days to a very frightening degree.

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 01:58 (twenty-one years ago)

(...is this where I quietly say I really really do mean it when I try to cheer Jess up, however stupidly or hamhandedly?)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 02:00 (twenty-one years ago)

NO NOW IT IS THE TIME WHEN WE DANCE

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 02:01 (twenty-one years ago)

(sorry)

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 02:01 (twenty-one years ago)

nine months pass...

I can't believe I hadn't heard a word about this (and living in New England, too). It was only just today I was leafing through an end-of-the-year tribute for those who had died this year in some magazine, that I came across one for Grey.

Anyway, R.I.P. I saw him perform with Chris Noth and Charles Durning in Gore Vidal's "The Best Man" on Broadway about 3 years ago.

― Joe (Joe), Monday, 27 December 2004 03:58 (twenty years ago)

Was it the NY Times Magazine? Chuck Klosterman had an odd joint tribute for Gray and Mary-Ellis Bunim (Real World producer), in which he proposes that the confessional monologuist Gray is the father of reality television.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 27 December 2004 04:09 (twenty years ago)

ah, klosterman, ever the dumbass.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 27 December 2004 04:46 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, it was in the NYTimes magazine. It's hard to write a good obit (not that I've tried) but the one on Layne Van Zandt (Ronnie's dad) seemed to really catch it.

― 57 7th (calstars), Monday, 27 December 2004 14:34 (twenty years ago)

five years pass...

so Steven Soderbergh has curated, more than directed, a 90-minute Gray autobio using the monologue clips, interviews, etc. The footage at the end after his car accident is painful to watch.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/and-everything-is-going-fine/5195

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 December 2010 21:23 (fourteen years ago)

want to see

― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Monday, 6 December 2010 21:23 (fourteen years ago)

yes, would definitely like to see that.

― jed_, Monday, 6 December 2010 21:35 (fourteen years ago)

I saw him a few times live. His out-of-print compilation of non-Cambodia 1980s monologues, Sex and Death to the Age 14 is a great and (probably even still) funny read.

― would like a calmer set (Eazy), Monday, 6 December 2010 21:38 (fourteen years ago)

I had forgotten the degree to which the potential for suicide (as well as the legacy of his mother's) is all over the monologues.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 December 2010 21:55 (fourteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4B5c5xi8J8

― would like a calmer set (Eazy), Monday, 6 December 2010 21:56 (fourteen years ago)

the one time i saw him he did an incredibly funny monologue about that production of our town.

― jed_, Monday, 6 December 2010 21:59 (fourteen years ago)

i think the monlogue was called monster in a box.

― jed_, Monday, 6 December 2010 21:59 (fourteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpMGzAY34KE

― would like a calmer set (Eazy), Monday, 6 December 2010 22:03 (fourteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTvCSNZkSds&feature=related

― would like a calmer set (Eazy), Monday, 6 December 2010 22:04 (fourteen years ago)

there is an Our Town story excerpted in this S.S. project (it might be from MiaB, which is anchored on a book project, no?).

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 December 2010 22:05 (fourteen years ago)

Yup, it's about him getting an advance to write Impossible Vacation and getting the offer to do Our Town at the same time.

I forgot that I saw him read from Impossible Vacation at the Walker Art Center, which wasn't as exciting as a regular Gray performance (in the way that Laurie Anderson behind-some-keyboard concerts aren't as spectacular as her multimedia shows). He did tell some digressive story of being out on the town the night before and meeting someone in a diner and ending up in a car somewhere -- I can barely remember it, but it was some random adventure.

― would like a calmer set (Eazy), Monday, 6 December 2010 22:28 (fourteen years ago)

After going to Swimming, Gray's, MiaB and maybe some older ones he re-performed in NYC, the last 2 times I saw him were in Vidal's The Best Man and one of his "interview an audience member" things in Prospect Park. He picked a fiftyish lifelong Brooklynite who'd been gentrified out of Park Slope, and at one point she asked him, "So is that woman you dumped still pissed off at you?"

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 December 2010 22:40 (fourteen years ago)

four years pass...

Oliver Sacks on Spalding Gray:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-catastrophe-oliver-sacks

― neil young thug (Eazy), Monday, 20 April 2015 18:14 (ten years ago)

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