Actors - Spalding Gray

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	Actors - Spalding Gray

Spalding Gray (June 5, 1941 – about January 10, 2004) was a U.S. actor, screenwriter and playwright. Born in Barrington, Rhode Island, he was best known for his performance monologues, which deal with events from his own life in a style characterised by humor, paranoia and acute self-consciousness.

Career

After a few minor cinema roles and appearing in a number of forgettable pornographic films with titles like The Farmer's Daughter and Little Orphan Dusty, Gray first achieved national prominence with his film Swimming to Cambodia
, a filmed version of one of his monologues. He based the monologue on his experiences in Southeast Asia while filming a small part in the 1984 movie The Killing Fields.

He attracted some attention from postmodernist critics over the extent of the overlap between his off-stage self and his on-stage persona, and was sometimes criticised as exploitative for the way he appropriated the fortunes or misfortunes of others for material for his monologues. He was a founding member of the experimental theater company The Wooster Group. He also appeared in a Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's Our Town.

In the early 1990s, Gray published his first and only novel, Impossible Vacation. The novel is strongly based upon Gray's own life experiences, including his Christian Scientist upbringing, his WASP background, and his mother's suicide. True to form, Gray wrote a monologue about his experiences writing the book, entitled Monster in a Box
.

In June 2001 he suffered severe injuries in a car crash whilst on holiday in Ireland. In January 2004, Gray, known to suffer bouts of depression in part as a result of these injuries, was declared missing.

Death

On March 7, 2004, the New York City medical examiner's office reported that at 3:00 Spalding Gray's body had been pulled from the East River. In light of a suicide attempt in 2002, and the fact that his mother had taken her own life in 1967, suicide was the suspected cause of death. It was reported that Gray was working on a new monologue at the time of his death, and that the subject matter of the piece – the Ireland car crash and his subsequent attempts to recover from his injuries – might have triggered his final bout of depression.

Gray was survived by his wife, Kathie Russo, three children, and his brothers Rockwell Gray, an English professor in St. Louis, Missouri, and Channing Gray, arts writer for the Providence (RI) Journal.

Filmography

Below is a chronological filmography.

2001 Kate and Leopold – Actor: Dr. Geisler
2001 How High
– Actor: Professor Jackson
2001 Julie Johnson – Actor: Mr. Miranda
2001 Revolution #9 – Actor: Scooter McCrae
1999 Coming Soon
– Actor: Mr. Jennings
1997 Drunks – Actor: Louis
1997 Bliss – Actor: Alfred
1996 Diabolique
– Actor: Simon Veatch
1996 Gray's Anatomy – Actor: Himself; Also: Screenwriter
1996 Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud
1996 Glory Daze
1995 Hoogste Tijd – Actor: Jack's Father
1995 Bad Company – Actor: Walter Curl
1995 Beyond Rangoon – Actor: Jeremy Watt
1994 The Paper
– Actor: Paul Bladden
1993 The Pickle – Actor: Dr. Spalding
1993 Twenty Bucks
– Actor: Priest
1993 Zelda
– Actor: Sayre
1993 King of the Hill
– Actor: Mr. Mungo
1992 Straight Talk
– Actor: Dr. Erdman
1991 Monster in a Box
– Actor: Himself; Also: Screenwriter
1991 To Save a Child – Actor: Hobart
1989 Heavy Petting
1989 The Image
– Actor: Frank Goodrich
1988 Clara's Heart
– Actor: Dr. Peter Epstein
1988 Stars and Bars – Actor: Rev. Cardew
1988 Spalding Gray: Terrors of Pleasure
1988 Beaches
– Actor: Dr. Richard Milstein
1987 Swimming to Cambodia
– Actor: Himself; Also: Screenwriter
1986 Seven Minutes in Heaven – Actor: Dr. Rodney
1986 True Stories
– Actor: Earl Culver
1985 The Communists Are Comfortable (And Three Other Stories)
1984 The Killing Fields – Actor: United States consul
1984 Hard Choices – Actor: Terry Norfolk
1984 Almost You – Actor: Travel Agent
1983 Variety
1978 Maraschino Cherry
1976 Little Orphan Dusty – Actor
1973 The Farmer's Daughter – Actor: George
1972 Love-In '72 – Actor: Radical at party
1970 Cowards – Actor: Radical

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Spalding Gray ]

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