Have you seen this man?

Actor-writer Spalding Gray has been reported missing, police said. Police in New York City and in Southampton, N.Y., where the actor keeps his primary home, were searching for the actor.

Two years back, I attended an event at CUNY midtown on 34th Street where Gray was to discuss his work and his life with his current editor. I was really excited to have the opportunity to see him in such an intimate situation where he would actually be taking questions from the audience.

I’ve been a big fan of Gray since his ‘Monster in a Box’ was shown on HBO years back.

Well, the audience was a strange mix of Gray’s fans and oldsters (the event had been sponsored by AARP). Gray seemed withdrawn and closed of from his interviewer and the audience.

Overall, it was disappointing.

I couldn’t blame Gray though as it came out during the course of the evening he had been in a terrible plane accident a few months earlier and was suffering from continual pain as a result of the accident — to give you an idea of how sever the injuries were, one of Gray’s legs was now shorter than the other causing him to have problems walking (jogging which he apparently did regularly was no longer an option). Physical activity of any kind was laborious and it closed Gray off from a lot of the things he enjoyed.

At one point during the question and answer period, I was tempted to ask Gray if he thought he would have been as successful if he hadn’t been stricken with long-term depression (a malady he struggled greatly against throughout his life). Without the constant yearning, the pangs for happiness, would he have been as proficient? If he had been content and happy, would he have written and performed as much as he had? Or would his happiness, his satisfaction with life taken away the unrelenting motivation he was possessed by.

I had my own reasons for asking the question (having also labored under the burden of depression) but, was something in the way he acted on-stage, his mannerisms, the halting way he spoke, the guarded mien of his body language which made me think it would not be such a good topic to explore.

The very next day, Spalding Gray tried to kill himself out in the Hamptons.

Sometimes you beat the beast but, sometimes the beast beats you. The battle lasts your whole life and you never truly escape its grasp.

All in all, I hope Spalding Gray turns up safe and well somewhere and all he needed was nothing more than some time to be alone to struggle against the beast he’s fought for so long.