Actor, Storyteller Spalding Gray Confirmed Dead
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Actor and storyteller Spalding Gray, best known for writing and starring in the autobiographical film monologue, “Swimming to Cambodia,” was confirmed dead on Monday after going missing for nearly two months.
The body of the 62-year-old Gray was pulled out of the East River off Brooklyn on Sunday.
“We made a positive identification of Spalding Gray by dental and other X-rays,” said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner’s office.
No official finding had yet been made for cause of death, said Borakove, who added his family had been notified.
Gray was reported missing by his wife, Kathleen Russo, last seen on Jan. 10 near his apartment in New York’s Soho neighborhood. He had left his wallet and credit cards at home.
He had a history of depression and suicide attempts. Gray was involved in a severe automobile crash in Ireland in 2001 and his recovery had been difficult, his wife had said.
The night he disappeared, he called his 6-year-old son to say, “I love you,” his wife told local media.
Gray got his start in show business as a teenager when he staged a one-man show about his angst-ridden youth in Rhode Island.
Long involved with experimental theater, Gray and actorsWillem Dafoe and Jill Clayburgh were among the 1970s founders of the Wooster Theater Group in New York, staging new works and interpretations of classics at The Performing Garage.
Gray, who honed his autobiographical monologues at The Performing Garage, caught the public’s eye with the 1987 movie version of “Swimming to Cambodia,” directed by Jonathan Demme.
The wry and poignant monologue was based on Gray’s travels in Southeast Asia, where he went to play a small role in the 1984 movie, “The Killing Fields.”
His monologues were entertaining, introspective stories in which Gray would expose his intimate feelings, neuroses and fears in a vulnerable and captivating style.
He touched on such painfully private topics as his youth, his break-up with his longtime girlfriend and decision to marry Russo, his efforts to write a novel, his devastating accident, his search for a cure to a rare eye disease he suffered, the suicide of his mother and his own thoughts of suicide.
Other monologues of his that were made into movies were “Monster in a Box” (1992) and “Gray’s Anatomy” (1996).
Gray made his “mainstream” Broadway stage debut as the Stage Manager in the 1988 revival of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” an experience that inspired “Monster in a Box.”
Gray also frequently played character roles in films including “Kate & Leopold,” (2001), “Beyond Rangoon” (1995), “The Paper,” (1994), and David Byrne’s “True Stories” (1986).
Gray is also survived by three children and his brother, Rockwell Gray, an English professor.
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