Early Life
Gray was born in Providence, Rhode Island, to Rockwell Gray, Sr., the treasurer of Brown & Sharpe, and Margaret Elizabeth "Betty" Horton, a homemaker. He was the middle-born of three sons: Rockwell, Jr., Spalding and Channing. He was raised in the Christian Scientist faith and grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island, spending summers at his grandmother's house in Newport.
After graduating from Fryeburg Academy in Fryeburg, Maine, he enrolled at Emerson College as a poetry major, where he earned his B.A. in 1963.
In 1965, Gray moved to San Francisco and became a speaker and teacher of poetry at the Esalen Institute. In 1967, while Gray was vacationing in Mexico City, his mother committed suicide at the age of 52. After his mother's death, Gray moved away from the West Coast and permanently settled in New York City. Gray's books Impossible Vacation and Sex and Death to the Age 14 are largely based on his childhood and early adulthood.
Read more about this topic: Spalding Gray
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