March 15, 2004
Monster In A Box
Spalding Gray never really got it together. Since his mother committed suicide in 1967 at the age of 52, he never shook the feeling that he, too, would eventually die the same way. He agonized over these feelings, even spoke openly about it as his own 52nd birthday passed, and he finally succeeded in meeting this fate this past January. His body was pulled New York's East River on March 7th. He was 62.
In an 1997 interview he suggested an eptiaph for his tombstone:
"An American Original: Troubled, Inner-Directed and Cannot Type."
The last few years were especially bad for Gray. A 2001 car accident in Ireland left him with a broken hip, a fractured skull, and sciatic nerve damage. Depression over his injuries intensified, and he complained about not being to take long walks. He said that he didn't "feel whole anymore" and complained that he'd been maimed, and that there'd been "no acknowledgement of it."
Gray left behind an intensely personal and varied body of work. His riveting live performances generally featured only a desk and a glass of water as props. Usually wearing his trademark plaid flannel shirt, he would never leave the desk as he read in a soft, Rhode Island accent.
Roger Ebert referred to Gray as a house painter who got a good review in a local art magazine. The painter then abandons house painting for what was his real talent. Gray started as an actor - he had roles in over thirty films - but it was always talking about himself where he did his best work.
His greatest success was his Obie-winning monologue Swimming to Cambodia, which recounted his rise from obscurity to a movie role opposite Sam Waterston in The Killing Fields. After performing the monologue for two years, it became a film directed by Jonathan Demme.
Another succesful Gray monologue, Monster in a Box, dealt with Gray's struggles in writing his autobiography.
That's right. Gray talks about himself writing about himself. Yes, a little self-absorbed, but it works for me.
Suicide doesn't.