Spalding Gray
| Spalding Gray | |
|---|---|
At the Performing Garage (1979–81). Photograph by Gary Schoichet
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| Born |
Spalding Rockwell Gray June 5, 1941 Providence, Rhode Island, United States |
| Died | January 11, 2004 (aged 62) East River New York City, New York, United States |
| Cause of death | Suicide by drowning |
| Resting place |
Oakland Cemetery Sag Harbor, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Actor and writer |
| Spouse(s) | Renée Shafransky (1991–1993) Kathleen Russo (1994–2004; his death) |
Spalding Rockwell Gray (June 5, 1941 – January 11, 2004) was an American actor and writer. He is known for the autobiographical monologues that he wrote and performed for the theater in the 1980s and 1990s.
Theater critics John Willis and Ben Hodges described his monologue work as "trenchant, personal narratives delivered on sparse, unadorned sets with a dry, WASP, quiet mania". Gray achieved celebrity status for his monologue Swimming to Cambodia, which was adapted into a film in 1987 by filmmaker Jonathan Demme. Other one-man shows by Gray that were captured on film include Monster in a Box, directed by Nick Broomfield, and Gray's Anatomy, directed by Steven Soderbergh.
Gray died in New York City of an apparent suicide in 2004. Steven Soderbergh made a 2010 documentary film about Gray's life entitled And Everything Is Going Fine.
Gray was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to Rockwell Gray, Sr., the treasurer of Brown & Sharpe, and Margaret Elizabeth "Betty" Horton, a homemaker. He was the middle-born of three sons: Rockwell, Jr., Spalding, and Channing. He was raised in the Christian Scientist faith and grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island, spending summers at his grandmother's house in Newport, Rhode Island.
After graduating from Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg, Maine, he enrolled at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, as a poetry major, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1963.
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