John Bowers (1885-1936) was a silent movie star, married to actress Marguerite de la Motte; his career failed with the talkies and in November 1936, he rented a sailboat and set off to sea at Santa Monica and vanished. His body washed ashore some time later. He’s generally thought to be one of the inspirations for Norman Maine in the various A Star is Born movies.
Spaulding Gray officially becomes a “missing person” by Monday. His family says now, “As far as I’m concerned, the story is still open,” [brother] Rockwell Gray says. “My hope is still that he will be able to continue and come back.” “I’m not prepared to speak of him in the past yet,” says [coworker] Schechner. “He could still very well turn up — he’s lived in many ways a wondrous life.”
Thanks, Eve. I didn’t know Norman Maine was based on a real story – which, considering I’ve seen all of the versions (except the Streisand-Kristofferson one) multiple times indicates some kind of gap in my education.
Nope. He is officially a “missing person,” there have been reported possible sightings on the Staten Island Ferry and a NJ diner—but this was right after he vanished.
How do you just “disappear” these days? It’s not like the old Judge Crater days; your body would be found, and pretty soon. It sounds like,
a) He’s in hiding
b) He’s under the ice in the river
No news here, but I just read this heartbreaking story about Gray that details more of what he’d been going through the last couple of years. I was crying by the end (especially since I love the movie Big Fish so very much).
Oh, what a horribly depressing story, Equipoise! I’d had no idea the poor man was such a mess. A suicide waiting to happen, it seems. Remember the four boys who disappeared in a boat last winter? It took more than a month, I think, for the bodies to resurface because of the cold.
The sad thing about seriously depressed and mentally/emotionally unbalanced loved ones is that they can be so goddam annoying to be around . . .
One odd detail about his life that has been mentioned, but not explained, in recent articles is that he apparently lived in a loft apartment in SoHo and his kids lived with a nanny in some other house that he hadn’t visited since Christmas. I’m not sure where his wife lived, but it sounded like she “moved” in with her kids when he went missing. Has anyone ever heard of someone’s kids living with a nanny fulltime? Had he ever talked about this in monologues or interviews? I’ve never heard of such a thing.
(It’s “Spalding,” not “Spaulding.” Like the volleyball.)
I first heard of Spalding Gray about a decade ago, but never really knew too much about him. This is a very sad story, and reminds me a lot of two of my favorite artists, one musical and the other literary, who both ended up losing their struggles with depression.
The musical artist I refer to is Phil Ochs, whose socially conscious songs were very much part of the movements of the 1960s. With the sorry state of American politics what it is today, I really wish Phil were still around to write and sing about the Bushes and Clintons and the rest of our latter day political hacks.
The literary artist is Richard Brautigan, who also made his mark during the sixties counterculture days and who also left this world far too soon and far too tragically.
I suppose I could also add Abbie Hoffman to this list.
Eve mentions how difficult it can be to be around an emotionally disturbed person, and from what I have read this was the case for all three of the people I mention (at least at some point in their lives). Ochs went through a particularly nasty period near the end of his life where he actually took on a different persona (named “John Butler Train”) that was extremely out of control. He eventually went back to being “Phil Ochs,” but the depression remained and he committed suicide not long after.