Published: Friday, 20th August, 2010 4:21pm

Film to be made of actor's 2001 stay in Tullamore hospital

In the wake of a car accident in Rosemount, near Moate, in 2001, the American actor, Spalding Gray (The Killing Fields, Kate and Leopold), was treated in the hospital in Tullamore.

His experiences at the hospital in Tullamore became part of a monologue, 'Black Spot', which he performed widely before his suicide four years later.

Now, that monologue - which includes an account of the crash and his hospitalisation in Ireland - is to be the subject of a film which is being made by his wife, Kathleen Russo.

Backing the project is the actress Whoopi Goldberg, while actor John C. Reilly is tipped to play a leading role in it.

It's not clear yet if any of the filming will, however, be done in Ireland, says Laois photographer David Fitzgerald, who spent some time this year trying to locate the spot where the fateful accident happened.

Kathleen Russo has stated that she believes that the accident, in which Mr Gray sustained a skull fracture, and a broken hip, led to brain damage, which caused depression.

It was this depression, she believes, that led him to throw himself off the Staten Island ferry.

What was long a mystery however, was where exactly in Ireland the accident happened, and using reports from the Westmeath Offaly Independent, Mr Fitzgerald believes he has found the spot, in Rosemount. Mr Gray and his wife were staying at Coolatore House, which, at the time was owned by US publicist John Scanlon, who, reveals David Fitzgerald, worked with Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky affair.

What made it difficult to identify the location was the fact that there were no fatalities in the accident. What helped Mr Fitzgerald trace the spot however, was the reminiscences of Spalding Gray himself, who said that the woman who first came on the scene and tended to him there, told him her own nine year old son had died there just a year earlier.

Mr Fitzgerald found the account of that death in the Westmeath Offaly Independent, and upon investigating further, became satisfied that this was where the accident happened.

Mr Gray's account of the accident, and his hospital treatment was less than complimentary.

As we reported in the Offaly Independent in 2004, after Mr Gray's body was recovered from the river, the crash happened in June 2001. He and two others were in a car which was in collision with another vehicle as they returned to where they were staying after a meal at a restaurant. Mr Gray claimed that at the scene as he screamed in agony, he was asked by one of the ambulance crew if he was "excitable".

Mr Gray said the hospital was "one of those horrible Irish country hospitals".

The HSE told the Offaly Independent at the time that Mr Gray was in the hospital for just two days. It is understood he was later in hospital in Dublin.

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