From the archives: Performer Spalding Gray goes missing

This story was originally published in Newsday on January 14, 2004

Spalding Gray, the one-man performance artist who has endured his mother's suicide, severe bouts of depression and a 2001 car accident that left him with a fractured skull, remained unaccounted for yesterday, more than 48 hours after he was reported missing.

Police and relatives, who were searching for the 62-year-old actor-author on the East End and in Manhattan, were especially concerned for Gray's well-being because he has twice attempted suicide in the past two years.

Yesterday, a woman at Gray's two-story white house in North Haven on the South Fork, who identified herself only as a friend of the family, said relatives were "too upset to comment."

"We're asking anyone who sees him to contact us," she said. "We're just praying and hoping for the best."

A police source yesterday said Gray had plans Saturday to fly to Colorado, where he was to meet friends for a ski trip. Before leaving, Gray learned that there would be a problem with his connecting flight from Denver to Aspen, so he rescheduled the trip for Sunday.

Gray returned to his apartment Saturday afternoon and went to a movie with his son, the source said. He was last seen by family members leaving his apartment at 6:30 p.m. to meet an unidentified friend.

When he hadn't returned by midday Sunday, his wife and manager, Kathleen Russo, contacted police.

Gray, perhaps best known for monologue films such as "Gray's Anatomy" and "Swimming to Cambodia," splits his time between Manhattan and the East End. He and Russo have three children who live full-time in North Haven with a nanny.

No one answered the phone yesterday at the couple's home in SoHo.

Southampton police, meanwhile, confirmed that neither Gray nor Russo had visited the Long Island home since Christmas.

Police officials yesterday said Gray's wallet, containing money, credit cards and driver's license, was left in his apartment. Gray generally travels by taxi.

NYPD officials yesterday were checking Manhattan and East End hospitals for men fitting Gray's description. Detectives were also said to be interviewing the actor's friends and business associates.

A car crash during a 2001 vacation in Ireland left Gray depressed and physically broken, with a dropped foot, fractured skull, broken hip and a nearly severed sciatic nerve.

Two suicide attempts followed, most recently on Oct. 15, when Gray jumped off the bridge between Sag Harbor and North Haven. Sag Harbor Village police chief Thomas Fabiano said yesterday that Gray was walking on the bridge, stopped to talk to a driver, then jumped off. Police Lt. Thomas X. Mackey and a civilian, Thomas Gustin, jumped into the water and pulled him out.

Gray also attempted to jump off the bridge in 2002.

Despite his erratic behavior and, some would say, exceptional misfortune, Gray yesterday was described by members of the entertainment community as "jovial company" and "a man with, obviously, a very funny side."

"This has taken me by surprise," said Gary Fisketjon, vice president and editor at large of Alfred A. Knopf publishing and Gray's editor on 1992's "Impossible Vacation."

"He never seemed to be someone who was laboring under grave depression," Fisketjon said. "He would refer to his traumas and his peculiar childhood in his work, but it really wasn't ever part of natural conversation."