Early life

Close was born on March 9, 1934, in Manhattan, Kansas.^[2] He ran away from home at the age of 17 to work in a traveling side show, but returned to attend Kansas State University. At age 19 he performed in summer stock with the Belfry Players at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.^[3] At age 23 he became a member of the Compass Players in St. Louis.^[4] When most of the cast—including Mike Nichols and Elaine May—moved to New York City, Close followed. He developed a stand-up comedy act, starred as the Yogi in the Broadway musical revue The Nervous Set,^[5] and performed briefly with an improv company in Greenwich Village with fellow Compass alumni Mark and Barbara Gordon. Close also worked with John Brent to record the classic Beatnik satire album How to Speak Hip, a parody of language-learning tools that purported to teach listeners the secret language of the "hipster".^[6]

Chicago years

In 1960 Close moved to Chicago, his home base for much of the rest of his life, to perform and direct at Second City, but was fired due to substance abuse. He spent the latter half of the 1960s in San Francisco where he was the house director of improv ensemble The Committee, featuring performers such as Gary Goodrow, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Bonerz, Howard Hesseman and Larry Hankin. He toured with the Merry Pranksters, and he created light images for Grateful Dead shows.

In 1972, he returned to Chicago and to Second City. He also directed and performed for Second City's troupe in Toronto in 1977. Over the next decade he coached many popular comedians. In the early 1980s he served as "house metaphysician" at Saturday Night Live; for many years, a significant percentage of the show's cast were Close protégés. He spent the mid-to-late 1980s and 1990s teaching improv, collaborating with Charna Halpern at Yes And Productions and the ImprovOlympic Theater with Compass Players producer, David Shepherd.^[7]

In 1987, Close mounted his first scripted show, Honor Finnegan vs. the Brain of the Galaxy, created by members of Close and Halpern's Improv Olympics from a scenario by Close, at CrossCurrents in Chicago.^[8] Running concurrently at the same theater was The TV Dinner Hour, written by Richard O'Donnell of New Age Vaudeville, featuring Close's running routine as The Rev. Thing of the First Generic Church of What's-his-name.^[8]

During this period, Close also appeared in several movies; he portrayed corrupt alderman John O'Shay in The Untouchables^[9] and an English teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He co-authored the graphic horror anthology Wasteland for DC Comics with John Ostrander,^[10] and co-wrote several installments of the "Munden's Bar" backup feature for Ostrander's Grimjack. Close performed in the 1993 world premiere of Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Personal life

An obituary published in the Manhattan Mercury said that Close’s father died in Manhattan, Kansas, on December 16, 1954, after being found unconscious in his jewelry store and that the cause of death was “self-inflicted.”^[11] Close would have been 20 years old and, according to Kim "Howard" Johnson, a biographer in the documentary For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close, said that Close was in New York at the time, over a thousand miles away from where his father died.^[12]

Close had told many varied and dramatic accounts of his father’s suicide, with the general story being that his father did it right in front of him when he was a child (accounts vary in age between 6–17 years old) by drinking a caustic liquid (various accounts on which type of caustic liquid).^[11]

Regardless of when or how the suicide of Close’s father occurred, many of his friends believed it had a profound effect on him. Close would frequently bring it up in conversation with friends and even on stage. In the 2020 documentary For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close, he is filmed on stage saying to the improv actors and audience, “My father was a spectacular suicide. He drank a quart of sulphuric acid, slashed his wrists. And they kept him alive for two days longer than Jesus hung on the cross, and I used to use that death to get sympathy and to get laid with.”^[13] Then Close wanted to do an improv scene where he would play himself and another actor, Dave Thomas, would play the doctor who would tell Close that his father had just died from the suicide that Close had described. Thomas refused, saying in the documentary that he didn’t think it would be a good joke and that there was an obligation to the audience to create laughs—not just to make them gasp. Close replied, “Now perhaps you’re not used to this particular kind of horrifying honesty, but I expect the same thing from you and nothing less.”^[13]

Close was addicted to cocaine but decided to change his lifestyle when his student John Belushi died of a drug overdose in 1982. Close had recently read the book A Witch's Guide to Psychic Healing by Yvonne Frost, which argues that the modern Pagan religion Wicca can provide spiritual healing. He joined a Wiccan coven in Toronto and fought his drug habit together with Wiccan priests who performed a banishing ritual. He stopped using drugs and remained an active Pagan.^[14][15]

Death and legacy

Close died of emphysema on March 4, 1999, at the Illinois Masonic Hospital (now the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center) in Chicago, five days before his 65th birthday.^[1] He bequeathed his skull to Chicago's Goodman Theatre to be used in its productions of Hamlet, and specified that he be duly credited in the program as portraying Yorick. Charna Halpern, Close's long-time professional partner and the executor of his will, conveyed a skull that she claimed was his, in a high-profile televised ceremony on July 1, 1999.^[16]

A front-page article in the Chicago Tribune in July 2006 questioned the authenticity of the skull, however, citing the presence of teeth (Close was edentulous — toothless — at the time of his death) as well as showing the presence of autopsy marks (Close was never autopsied) among other problems.^[17] Halpern stood by her story at the time but admitted three months later, in a The New Yorker interview, that she had purchased the skull from a local medical supply company.^[18][19]

Bill Murray organized an early 65th birthday party and wake, shortly before Del's anticipated death as he lay on his deathbed in a Chicago hospital, memorialized in a two-part video.^[20]

After Close's death, his former students in the Upright Citizens Brigade founded the annual Del Close Marathon, three days of continuous improvisation by hundreds of performers at various venues in New York City.^[21]