ACTOR
Spalding Gray
- Known for
- Beaches (1988), The Nanny (1993), True Stories (1986), The Paper (1994)
22 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
Spalding Gray is an actor best known for Beaches, The Nanny and True Stories.
All facts (22)
- #001
Spalding Gray's mother committed suicide in 1967; Gray sometimes spoke in his monologues of a desire to do the same.
- #002
Gray's depression worsened when his family moved from the house he loved in Sag Harbor to a house he hated in New Haven.
- #003
He was reported missing on Sunday, January 10, 2004. His body was found in the East River in New York City on March 7, 2004.
- #004
In 2001 he was seriously injured in a traffic accident in Ireland. At the time of his disappearance in January 2004, Gray was reported to be working on a new monologue based on his experience of the accident and his recovery. According to some published reports, Gray suffered from depression that intensified after the accident.
- #005
He said that only his children could make him laugh.
- #006
Police, who had reported him missing on January 10, pulled his body from the East River at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 7, 2004. The body was found in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, near Kent Avenue.
- #007
He had two sons with Kathleen Russo: Forrest and Theo.
- #008
Sources said that Gray, a manic depressive who had attempted suicide twice, tried to jump from a ferry in September but was stopped by a friend.
- #009
All of Spalding Gray's monologues were first staged at The Performing Garage in SoHo in New York City and/or at Lincoln Center in New York City before being filmed.
- #010
He is known for the monologue films Swimming to Cambodia (1987), Monster in a Box (1992) and Gray's Anatomy (1996); the only action in the films is Gray sitting at a microphone telling his stories.
- #011
The directors of the filmed versions of Gray's monologues Swimming to Cambodia (1987), Spalding Gray: Terrors of Pleasure (1987), Monster in a Box (1992) and Gray's Anatomy (1996) rank first: respectively Jonathan Demme, Thomas Schlamme (a multiple Emmy-winning producer and director of The West Wing (1999)), Nick Broomfield (the famous British documentary filmmaker) and Steven Soderbergh.
- #012
Steven Soderbergh made a documentary film about Gray's life, And Everything Is Going Fine (2010).
- #013
He was reported missing after disappearing from his home in Manhattan.
- #014
He graduated from Emerson College.
- #015
Gray received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Book Award in 1985 for this work.
- #016
He continued to write and perform monologues until his death. Throughout 1993 these works often included his relationship with his girlfriend Renée Shafransky. They married and she became his collaborator.
- #017
In 1965 Gray moved to San Francisco, California, where he became a speaker and poetry teacher at the Esalen Institute.
- #018
Biography/bibliography, "Contemporary Authors," New Revision Series, vol. 138, pages 184-190. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.
- #019
Gray's disappearance surprised his wife because the worst period of his depression seemed to have passed.
- #020
After graduating from Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg, Maine, Gray enrolled as a poetry major at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts.
- #021
When Spalding Gray was first reported missing, his profile was featured on the Fox Network series America's Most Wanted.
- #022
Spalding Gray began his theater career in New York in the late 1960s. In 1970 he joined Richard Schechner's experimental group The Performance Group. Along with performers from The Performance Group such as Willem Dafoe and Elizabeth LeCompte, Gray helped found the theater company The Wooster Group. He worked with them from 1975 to 1980 before leaving the company to focus on his monologue work.
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