Spalding Gray

Spalding Gray

Spalding Rockwell Gray (June 5, 1941 – ca. January 11, 2004) was an American actor and writer. He was primarily known for the autobiographical monologues that he wrote and performed for the theater in the 1980s and 1990s. The 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 the filmmaker Jonathan Demme. Other one-man shows by Gray that were captured on film include Monster in a Box and Gray's Anatomy.

He died in New York City of an apparent suicide in 2004. The film director Steven Soderbergh made a documentary film about Gray's life, entitled And Everything Is Going Fine, in 2010.