The contents on this page were originally found on my old website. There's more stuff to transfer over and update... give me some time. This page was updated on 2/19/01.

Del Close

1954 - 1999 - ????

This page is reserved for the memories of Mr. Del Close, my teacher and mentor for 4 years. He was/is a legendary figure in the world of improvisation, and, coincidentally, comic books. He thought that Life was Art... and he lived to prove that Death was also. This page is reserved for your extraneous Del Close stories or quotes. E-mail me if you want to contribute!

HERE ARE SOME OF THE MESSAGES COLLECTED AT THE TIME OF DEL'S PASSING FROM THIS MORTAL COIL:

Such fun laughing and crying at the same time, reading about Del Pickle, my Manhattan high school acting mate and friend. Over the years, I took every opportunity to remind Del that he had made a big mistake leaving New York City for Chicago, precipitously giving up his perfectly good walk-up rent controlled apartment in little Italy, convinced Robert Moses was going to have his way with a super highway, taking out Del's neighborhood. He'd come further downtown to visit my sculpture studio, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, walking in holding out his hand with five or six colored pills, asking, "want one?" I'd gesture around at the weird images I was creating out of metal, wondering if he wasn't there because I provided another kind of high, "Don't you think I already have enough trouble holding onto my mind?" He didn't push it further, just shaking his head, "yes, no," I think in agreement.

His departure was a real coup for the windy city.

It's such a pleasure to hear these words of tribute from Close friends.
Holding onto laughter, particularly as one gets older, is indeed, the result of a special artist's efforts.
Thanks, so much, for putting this tribute together.
Tal Streeter

A few years ago, three buddies and I, wrote a show called KLOWN: PRICK US AND WE'LL BURST, well the four of us all being students of Del, asked him if he would come to the opening. He did. And he loved us. That was our biggest joy out of doing that show. Him sitting in that little theater space(hot as hell), and coughing his head off! If Del was your fan,well it get's no better then that.
FOOTNOTE: Often durning a class break I would be outside the I.O. (on Belmont) puffing on a cigarette, and Del would ask me for a drag, one day I told him that if Charna catches us, that I would be the one to catch a beat'in. He looked me square in the face and said "You're a big boy, you can handle it"! I'm not a big boy and I could'nt have handled it! Not then, not now! If she reads this I'm dead meat.
Thanks Del,
Miss ya,
Dave Schmidt

"Me and Frank Barnett we the only smokers in this class. I had run out of cigarettes and asked Frank if I could bum one off him but he was out too. Del over heard this and told me he could have one of his Sherman's on the bar. I froze because I remembered from a drug education documentary that a Sherman is slang for a cigarette dipped in PCP. I went over to the bar and saw a pack of British Cigarettes named Sherman, I guess that's a brand they smoke overthere. I was relieved and took one to smoke. I told Del that I thought what he ment by Sherman was a cigarette dipped in PCP and he told me he never heard of that term.
Not only am I one of the few people to ever bum a cigarette off Del but I'm one of the very few to teach him a new drug slang phrase."
Sent in by Dan Moskal (10/12/99)

Jeff Griggs, member of Deep Schwa and of the Del Close directed show, SPOO, spent the last year of Del's life driving Del to various places in Chicago and helping him out and just hanging out with him. Jeff was kind enough to send me these stories. Thanks Jeff! Send some more!
< Here are a couple of stories:

1- Del and I were at a bookstore so he could buy some books for Christmas. He always said "I don't believe in this Christmas thing, but others do so I guess I'll oblige them."
He had bought three books for Miles, Frank and Susan and we took them up to the counter to check them out. All three of the books were very special to Del because they were his three favorite books and it took a long time to find all three books.

As the Borders employee was bagging the books Del, very proud of his selections, motioned to the books and said, "I'll give you fifty dollars if you can name one book better then these three books?"

The guy handed Del the bag of books and smiled, "I've actually read all three of these books and I would have to say that I personally enjoyed "Ulysses" better then all three combined."
Del said, "Yeah, well you're an idiot." And then he walked away.

2- Most of my memories of Del are when Del showed his softer side. One day last fall, Del called and asked if we could drive down Lake Shore Drive. As we turned off Irving Park onto the Drive, Del rolled down the window and sighed "I just wanted to have one last chance to see the leaves change colors."

We got to Navy Pier and I asked Del if he wanted me to turn around and head back along the drive. "Nope," he said as he rolled the window back up. "That'll do me until I die. Let's eat."

3- Del and I were walking out of the grocery store and we saw this confused old couple trying to find their car. They wandered around the parking lot and Del watched them as I loaded the groceries into the car. As we were driving away the old woman was yelling at the old man and Del looked at me and shook his head. "If I ever get like that, I beg you, put me out of my misery. Shoot Charna."

4- One week I went to Del's on Wednesday instead of Thursday. He buzzed me up and let me in the door. He sat down and started watching T.V. so I sat down and started watching it with him. "Repo Man" was on the set and Del was laughing like a banshee. I sat there puzzled.
I couldn't understand what he was laughing at. The worse the movie got, the harder Del laughed. He was laughing so hard that he got me laughing. "Repo Man" finished and I started getting ready for us to go. Del flipped the channel and the opening credits for "Raising Arizona" flashed across the scene. Del didn't budge. He sat transfixed to the television. At one point, I thought Del was going to tip over the table because he was laughing so hard. As Nicholas Cage was running through the grocery store with the diapers, Del mumbled, "This'll be good." And then proceded to laugh so hard he had tears and snot running down his face.

Somewhere towards the middle of the movie, Del jumped up and screamed at the top of his lungs. I jumped back behind the refrigerator because I thought he was going to throw the remote at me. He squinted at me and finally muttered, "Jeff? When did you get here?" He was BAKED. I hadn't realized it until that moment. I told him how I had been sitting in the chair across from him for almost two and a half hours.

I told him that I had carried on several conversations with him during those two hours. He smiled and said, "You'd be surprised how many times that cat has talked to me within the past few months. I've gotton a hold of some very wonderful pot."

I left and wrote Del a note telling him that I would be back the next day. As Del crawled into my car the next day he shook his head and said, "It's not nice to fuck with an old man when he's stoned. You had me paranoid all night."

At the first BSIIF (Big Stinking Improv Festival), he taught classes every day. I'd mentioned to him that some of us were frustrated because we had a fair amount of experience and were in classes with people asking questions like "what's an edit?" On the final day of the festival, he asked (in a very diplomatic way) for the class members to participate only if they knew what they were doing. After a couple of stops and starts, we performed an impressionistic horror...and nailed it.

Afterwards, he was silent for a few moments, then asked us to go to our seats and sat on the edge of the stage. He talked about being in San Francisco in the late '70s with John Brent. They heard about gathering in the park, decked themselves out in "their finest psychedelic regalia," and headed out in hopes of hearing some good music, getting some free drugs, and hanging with a few dozen like-minded souls. They crested the hill, and in the park were tens of thousands of people.

He said watching us perform gave him the same feeling...that his dream had always been to see people with nothing in common but a knowledge of this art create something together. He added that most men don't get to see a dream like that come true in their lifetimes.

Hearing that, from him, was one of the most gratifying moments of my life. I'm thankful to have known him.
Sent in by Trish Berrong

My favorite Del line... Del came into class with a short sleeve t-shirt and said, "I call this my track suit."
Also, Del's final pre-show notes to SexWars... "I puked on my cat. I decided that it probably couldn't clean it all up by itself, so I came upon the idea of giving it a shower. Then I realized that it would probably scratch the living hell out of me, so I put on my raincoat, then took it in the shower... then I realized how funny it was, and called Jamie."

"Thank you, now politely sit down" (laughter turning into hacking cough) - to some unknown student

"You think you have scars, look at these" (shows the craters in his legs where he used shoot heroin) - to Frank and his scars

"Del Close is teaching you. Hey Joe (Mantegna), you know Del. (J.M. nods "yes") Yeah Del, he shot my first wife with her first heroin trip back in Frisco" - Joe Pantiollano on the set of "Baby's Day Out" to Frank

First: in a class, someone made reference to the Chronicles of Narnia. I chose to play Faun Tumnus from C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Don't remember much about the scene, but I DO remember Del complimenting me in front of the class. His exact words: "That was an absolutely wonderful faun. Really superlative." As I look this over, I realize that his praise reads as perfunctory and general. But to me, any praise from Del was and is treasured. I cherish the memory.

Second: Del, hacking and coughing for an extended period in class--easily five solid minutes. Near the end of the coughing fit, one of my fellow students offered to fetch Del a glass of water. Del shot her a scornful glance and replied (with no little rancor) "I don't breathe water."

Third, and finally: Del, in the midst of one of his twenty-minute pre-class rants, noted that he wasn't a "funny" person, in the sense of wacky, or zany, or wildly funny. He looked over the class, and said, "I have only one...'bit.' Is the lady with the dog [Charna] around? She hates this."

He then proceeded to spit out his upper denture plate and slap it against his face, while repeating "I bite myself. I bite myself. I bite myself." He popped the plate back in and grinned widely at our class.

The class was silent, I think, for about thirty full seconds. You could almost hear everyone thinking, all at once, "Did I just see that? Did Del fucking Close just hit himself in the face with his dentures? I didn't just see that. By god, I think he did it." And once that thought passed, everyone in the room, including Del, cracked up, and laughed a good long while. I can't remember experiencing a more odd and shockingly funny moment in any class, improv or otherwise. It may be presumptuous to think that I learned anything about Del in my experiences with him, but in that moment, I think I discovered that for all his accomplishments, for his quirks, for his crabbiness, for his genius, for his stories and oddities, Del was really not all that different from us.

Here are some quotes from my notes from the first time I had class with Del (late 1995):

"I'm kicking some Shakespearean ass." - reviewing his performance in "All's Well That Ends Well"

"It's nice to buy your pot from a witch... may not be the best, but it's certainly cheaper."

Stopping a scene, and all of our hearts- to someone in a scene: "Is that gum? Are you chewing gum up there?!"

"Like it or not, you're not just taking classes and performing at the ImprovOlympic... you're part of an art movement."

"Thank God, my youth lasted until I was 50." - on sex and today's restrictions.