Spalding Gray

I did finish "Impossible Vacation" last night, and then read a little about Gray. The book clearly was filled with autobiographical detail. And his story is a very sad one.

His mother did commit suicide. And he suffered from a manic-depressive condition throughout his life, although he didn't recognize it as such until he was well into his thirties, it seems. Before that, it was just mood swings, search for perfect experiences (usually, sexually oriented, one way or the other), trying to get acting jobs, trying to hold himself together. Eventually, he decided he could write, and his writing led him back to acting. He wrote a number of books, the best known being "Swimming to Cambodia", was in over 30 movies and a number of plays, and put together his own monologues on his life and troubles, which were apparently (and not surprisingly) both entertaining and perceptive.

He turned 60 in 2001, and a friend loaned him his farmhouse in Ireland for a celebration, to which Gray invited a number of his friends (he was also married with children by then). His friend who owned the house died of a heart attack just before they went to Ireland, which put a damper on things, but not nearly the damper that a very serious car accident did shortly after they arrived. Gray spent the rest of his life trying to recover from serious injuries including a fractured skull (forehead) which led to both disfiguration and a steel plate, and other broken bones. Surgeries and pain followed, and depression.

He had threatened suicide a number of times following the accident. He clearly was not his former self, and whatever tendencies he had to wither psychologically increased drastically. It was unclear if anyone took his suicide attempts/threats seriously, but one day, he apparently through himself in the East River. His body was recovered several weeks later. In the interim, he was classified as having simply disappeared, and his family and friends hoped that he would surface in one piece.

A sad, sad story.