The Journals of Spalding Gray

by Spalding Gray; Nell Casey

  DECEMBER 6, 1982

  Liz asked me to take Jack [now six months old] out for a walk while they painted the upstairs for the benefit. Taking Jack for a walk was both exciting and frightening. He was like this vulnerable innocent expression of something in me and yet more. Something OTHER that I could fight to protect as I walked over to a more violent neighborhood to visit Kim, Pam, and Michael. Jack started to cry when he got in that strange place and only I was able to stop him and he fell asleep on my chest which was incredible to see that little open mouth. That little sucker and then his face. The panic when I put him down. Then back out on the street walking him. We were out about two hours.

  JANUARY 8, 1983

  Got a call from Bob Carroll who wanted me to meet Susie Figgis, a casting director from London. [Figgis had heard of Gray through the screenwriter and director Peter Wollen, who was a fan of Gray’s monologues.] I wondered what was up. Most of the day was spent in rehearsal for The Crucible and then I fixed dinner for Renée. I made up my mind to dress up and go off to the Algonquin where I met Susie for drinks and a second dinner and found out that she was in fact the casting director for this film [The Killing Fields, directed by Roland Joffé] which is about this New York Times correspondent who had been stationed in Cambodia so it’s all about the Pol Pot regime and I immediately felt that I had no feelings for it. I wasn’t sure whether she was trying to seduce me but I didn’t take the bait even after we ate when she said, “Now it’s time for bed.” I left at midnight and wandered around the porn district for an hour looking at some porn books and hanging out by more deadly games.

  JANUARY 11, 1983

  These rushing days. Very little time for sex or love. Up late and rush off to Warner’s to meet Roland Joffé. Spring-like weather. I rode up with Arlene K. on the E. Train and talked about her property, then met Willem in the waiting room and talked briefly about Jack Frank. And then I had a long session with Jaffe in which he filled my ears with confusing stories about Cambodia and Kissinger’s theories of “Spheres of Influence” in which there are no longer independent countries—just pieces on his Machiavellian chess board. I came out feeling quite exhilarated and thought that even if I didn’t get in the film I would surely go to Washington to gather material for my next monologue.

  JANUARY 12, 1983

  Pavel says, “In what book is it written that you must be monogamous?” It’s the old question of me not taking responsibility for my life (each day). It has to be done each day. He points out that I long for some ten commandments written on the wall that I must follow. He said, what kind of relationship do you have when you feel you have to cover up what you do? Then he told me about his coal mining days and how he and a friend ended up in a hospital and got initiated to sex by being sucked off by a nun.

  JANUARY 21, 1983

  The Crucible did not seem as good or the audience didn’t seem to like it as much. I almost fell asleep during the opening. Long record. I’m drinking and eating too much at night and I’m getting fat. That’s all there is to it. I’m getting soft and fat and bald.

  FEBRUARY 6, 1983

  Feeling depressed all day from no sleep, too much drink and marijuana. Got back in time to write in my diary and get ready to receive Renée’s call. She called from school and we didn’t have much to talk about. I told her I would be willing to go see Frank with her if it would help resolve something. He said he didn’t know what to make of the two of us. With most couples he could offer some help but with us he was confused.

  MARCH 2, 1983

  I had another frantic day. [The casting director] Juliet Taylor called to tell me Roland Joffé was interested in me for his film and wondered what my schedule was like. This and too much coffee put me into one of my old panics about how the plane was going to crash or I was going to get appendicitis. But luckily I was able to get The Mass. Arts proposal written up. I ran into Pavel at West 4th Street and I had a rather manic exchange with him telling him that I was up now but was afraid of crashing once my tour ended. I told him that things were going alright with Renée.

  MARCH 3, 1983

  Juliet Taylor’s office called again to say that Roland Joffé really wants to make sure that he gets in touch with me so I’m still excited about that but I find myself more excited about going to THAILAND than doing the movie. Renée fixed a nice calf’s liver dinner for me and we went out to bed early.

  MARCH 7, 1983

  [Los Angeles]

  Got to Warner Brothers early. Nice place. I was a little excited but not as much as I thought I’d be. Roland put me at ease because he didn’t audition me. Said I’d be good for the role ____ who is the soft embassy man who turns to drink in the end. He said I’d be good for that and I agreed then we just went on to talk. He talked a lot and is really obsessing on the film. Told me all the artists, intellectuals and actors were shot in Cambodia so that he was unable to find any Cambodian actor and is thinking of casting a Cambodian doctor in the role. Also is thinking of Alan Arkin for the lead. We had a good talk. I told him of some of my work and how I was going to hitch to SAN FRAN California. Also we talked of therapy and Pavel and his therapist. I think it went well but I still doubt that anything will come of it.

  MARCH 25, 1983

  I find that I have a real hard time keeping up with my diary. I think it was a whole mixture of things. Much of it has to do with the fact that I have to write down all I say anyway and the other part is that I know Renée will want to know who and what I’ve been doing here and at one point I know she’ll try to read this and so I feel very inhibited about writing.

  MARCH 29, 1983

  Beautiful drive to the Airport. I’ve never seen LA look so good. Clean bright city of crazy nonsense architecture. Money, Money. Big sad face, well and nice empty plane. Window and great view. No one next to me. Two Bloody Marys and bad Movie. A little sleep and we were in New York in no time. R. was all upset when I got in. Had typed me a long letter about how Laurie who I had slept with once was about to be programmer at the Collective. Oh boy, what a lot of stuff to come home to. It never ends. Am I bringing this all down on myself as some ongoing punishment? R. keeps saying get serious for a moment. Willem got the role in the movie and will make big bucks. We went to sleep early.

  MARCH 31, 1983

  I’m a little nervous about the Joffé movie. Juliet Taylor called Jeff to say it was between me and one other but that Joffé was leaning towards me so I’m just trying not to think about it. Rested at home and then fixed big feed after spending much of the afternoon shopping for it. Renée came over to my place and we ate and then took a cab up to see [Martin Scorsese’s] The King of Comedy. A so-so film. De Niro was good but that was about all. We walked down to an Irish bar and had some Guinness and listened to some Irish music and talked.

  APRIL 1, 1983

  Being driven a little nuts by the feeling that Juliet Taylor called Jeff again and said “they” were still leaning toward me and would try to let me know by the end of the day but it didn’t come. This led to all kinds of magical thinking—if I turn off this light will it mean etc … and I had a vision of Roland somewhere thinking and fluctuating with each blink of the lights. So I just walked around trying to forget it all. Did buy a Turkey to fix. R. got all excited and said she wanted to invite Halle and Harvey over for Turkey sandwiches on Sat. after three-hour movie.

  APRIL 5, 1983

  Jeff called and said I got the movie! Sudden fear of fame! Would I still be able to interview audience after I do movie? Coupled with great feeling of power and relief. I tried to call R. but her line was busy so I went over to the Garage and Jeff told me that the film was only paying $1,500 a week and $350 expenses so I was a little let down having had all these high money expectations but we made a call to Joanna Ross and R. called around and we found out that it was a good standard offer and to go with it so we called and said yes. Went out for a walk to air my head and buy two books. Rollo May book on anxiety and [Walter J. Ong’s] “Orality and Literacy.”
Ate alone. R. all upset that I’m going away. She wants to come.

  MAY 4, 1983

  [On location in Bangkok, Thailand]

  Oh no! I’m all mixed up one day has crossed into another. All of this day happened yesterday. My Rama Tower Hotel is big and weird. Have a back room with a giant bed up on 9th floor away from crazy streets sounds. Roland took us all out for dinner. Wonderful food and good conversation. I sat next to LENG who had been a member of the KHMER Rouge but seemed very pleasant. When I think of it I’m a little overwhelmed that I was sitting with killers and the Cambodians from Long Beach are so happy and smiling all the time. We went to three B GIRL houses, the first was the craziest. Really mad bumping and grinding and grabbing on crotches was overwhelmed by the fact that some of the girls looked twelve or thirteen. John Malkovich and his wife Glenne who I like a lot left after a brief visit and Julian [Sands] and Tom [Bird] and I headed over to another place and after a while there I headed out to be alone and ran into this youngster on the street and she was working in one of the clubs but she didn’t seem to want to talk to me and got up to dance another one with pretty eyes came on to me and said she was going home with me and did giggling all the way. I can’t say no. Sex had been no good for me. I couldn’t let go. Somehow she got the radio to go off at six. Up with Frank Sinatra I think it was. Her singing along and asking for her 500 baht. I couldn’t talk her down and didn’t feel like it. Also I could not get back to sleep and had a sore throat which put me in a panic. So I got up and opened the windows because I thought the air-conditioner was doing me in, God was it hot and I started my day with a big breakfast. Tom, Ira [Wheeler] and I had our first rehearsal with Roland, which was weird. A lot of talking. Lunch and to bed for more sleep then off with Ira and Judy [Moorcroft, the costume designer] to buy shoes then back to bed for two hours and then my massage lady came and that was a full relaxing hour for 200 baht. A quick drink of whisky and met Ira for a fancy dinner in the Rotisserie and we talked about our life and how he had been married three times and was a grandfather and a retired businessman. To bed at eleven. Slept right out.

  MAY 6, 1983

  Rushed breakfast in order to get out to the pool at eight for group shot then back to my room and rehearsal with Roland, Sam [Waterston], Ira and Julian where we did an improv and I know so little about the subject and all these political words that all I could come up with was “How can they get by on all that white rice and no greens?” And I really don’t know how people took that. Roland is so serious. After the first rehearsal Ira and I went down to see videotapes for about two hours. They were very heavy particularly that Front Line reporting and the school that was hit by a Khmer Rouge rocket and all the horrid mixed up jumble of it all. Ira and I had lunch together and then I went to sleep and back at five to work with Roland and Ira and I went off with Judy again to be fitted.

  MAY 7, 1983

  I got a good night sleep and was up at 6:30 and out to the pool. Off to a good start. At breakfast found out that Ira had been in the Navy with Tinky [Gray’s mother’s brother] and they had also trained in New London together. Ira and I went with Susie to have lunch with Tim. Very pleasant but in some way disturbing. I think it was because he went to MIT and could speak Cambodian. Reminded me how I used to be threatened by Rocky’s college friends and I think I twisted it by wondering how he could work for such a corrupt government and be so together—me still the outsider. We had a long session with him and it was hard for me to follow all the facts because my history is so vague. After Ira and I went to see the Emerald Temple. Very garish very hot I couldn’t understand our guide. It was over 110°. Took a cab back and met with Roland, after talking with us awhile, he gave us a strange pep talk about how we had to give up our personal lives and dedicate ourselves to the making of this film. A bunch of us went out for dinner at the Indian place. I found out that Sam was the same age as me and had spent his summers in Matunuck, R.I. Nell [Campbell] the new girl from Australia drives me nuts. It’s her legs.

  MAY 9, 1983

  Took my Malaria pill and a ROMP of a day. The set was the hospital and all these—what looked like real sick and real poor people were all lying around in these fake bloody bandages but the Khmer Rouge Army really looked savage. Particularly the little ones with their guns. I didn’t stay on the set—I don’t know why—but fled back to the hotel to spend time by the pool.

  MAY 10, 1983

  UP at 6 with a small hangover and off to the pool for a swim, then talk with Ira, John and Nell in coffee shop. Nell got wild that we were going to see the Ambassador and wanted to come along. Heavy rain on the way. Ambassador talked as though Cambodia were a SHIP he was trying to guide to the port with dignity and told a very moving story about how he cut the two flags down and carried them out over his arm. It was very hypnotic. Like a piece of theater. Still wants to convince us that all America wants is self-determination. Cambodia like a great ship he was trying to sail into port with DIGNITY. How he tried to get everyone out. Then down to visit Tim. A man into the world politic as a structure. No fear of nuclear disaster. All of them believe in Political compromise.

  MAY 11, 1983

  Up at 5:30 to be ready for 6:45 trip to the American Embassy set which is a school that has been converted to look just like Phnom Penh which it does. The heat was outrageous. I’m sure well over 100° all day. At last there was some shade and a little breeze but I found it impossible to even think. Just sit in the impossible heat and wait. The idea of preparing for any kind of acting was lost to me. A talk with Tom about “Search and Destroy.” He told me that it was just recently that he found out that he was a decoy to bring the enemy out so that the planes could come in and destroy. Once a month they had a “mad minute” or “minute of madness” where they emptied all their M–16’s into the bush. We waited all day without working and then the long drive back. Some sad homesick feeling. A lovely sunset out the rear window. Small chat with John and Sam. A bath and drink at last. Glenne called me to go out with John and her to the FRENCH PLACE.

  MAY 12, 1983

  Woke about 4:30 and got up at 5. I couldn’t take my mornings like this. I don’t know how Sam does it. (Driven?) An interesting drive out to the set but makes me want to see the countryside less and less. It’s all very poor. At last I got to shoot. Doing the same small actions over and over which I liked but could not tell what my face was showing and felt a little self conscious like I could see the close-up already.

  MAY 13, 1983

  I just missed a call from Renée and I felt sick about that and called her back to the tune of 1,000 Baht and really nothing to say. Just panic at spending the money. I walked down to the tailors but the pants were not ready. Spent the rest of the afternoon out by the pool with two of the Cambodians Suon and Nay. Also Ira. I was happy to be around some of the Cambodians at last because I was curious. This all led to Ira and I going out with NEEVY who is very cute, Nay the ex–N.Y.C. cab driver, and the star of the movie, Haing S. Ngor who is a Cambodian gynecologist who lives in L.A. and had been tortured by the Khmer Rouge. We had a good time together laughing at the restaurant and when we asked the woman to turn off the musack she turned off the air-conditioner. We went back to the hotel bar and Sam was there. His wife had a new baby while he was here. Ira bought us drinks.

  MAY 14, 1983

  I found that I was very intimidated by the command of facts that Sam has. Also the fact that he went to Yale. All of that made me feel all those old inferior feeling of the past. I felt stupid and ill informed. We talked about America as a traditionally isolated country and about how El Salvador was different from Vietnam. Then we went out for a big meal with the Cambodians. It was a nice big Chinese family place and we all sat at a round table with a Lazy Susan and shared a big expensive meal. I walked back with Nell and some of the Cambodians and went to bed early. I feel like I’m getting fatter and fatter.

  MAY 15, 1983

  Right after breakfast I rode out to the location for the invasion of Phnom Penh
. It all looked very real. There were about 3,000 Thai extras all waving white flags as the Khmer Rouge tanks rolled in through billows of the black and white smoke. The heat gets unbearable. It must have been 120° in the sun and yet Roland appeared to be calm, his ADs have to do all the yelling. The Cambodians were saddened by watching this reenactment of the invasion. Some of them had been there for it and others had just escaped four hours before. It was in fact a fearful night as I watched them run it over and over.

  MAY 17, 1983

  Very long and hard day. The worst yet. From 7 to 7. The Embassy in outrageous heat, I ran my scene in the office with Sam. At first I was in a real panic and Roland had to sort of calm me down. So I was a sweaty mess then _____ told us it would be another hour before set-up. It seems as much energy goes into the technical aspect as it does paying attention to what the actors are doing. I felt very shallow. Like a soap opera actor. That feeling I often have before I settle into a role. So I spent much of my time thinking about how I could have or should have said my line. Very Frustrating. In fact I hated hearing myself and seeing myself on the video. I was completely exhausted when we finished at seven but made the mistake of having too much to drink up in Patrick [Malahide]’s room (a kind of “good old boys” men’s club has begun) by the time David [Henry], Patrick and I made it to Solemn Village for great fish dinner I was seeing double.