28 Facts About Del Close

Del Close was an American actor, writer, and teacher who coached many of the best-known comedians and comic actors of the late twentieth century.

Del Close ran away from home at the age of 17 to work in a traveling side show, but returned to attend Kansas State University.

Del Close developed a stand-up comedy act, starred as the Yogi in the Broadway musical revue The Nervous Set, and performed briefly with an improv company in Greenwich Village with fellow Compass alumni Mark and Barbara Gordon.

Del Close 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".

In 1960 Del 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.

Del Close 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.

Del Close toured with the Merry Pranksters, and he created light images for Grateful Dead shows.

Del Close directed and performed for Second City's troupe in Toronto in 1977.

Del Close 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.

Del Close co-authored the graphic horror anthology Wasteland for DC Comics with John Ostrander, and co-wrote several installments of the "Munden's Bar" backup feature for Ostrander's Grimjack.

Del Close performed in the 1993 world premiere of Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Del 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 by drinking a caustic liquid.

Regardless of when or how the suicide of Del Close's father occurred, many of his friends believed it had a profound effect on him.

Del Close drank a quart of sulphuric acid, slashed his wrists.

Del Close was addicted to cocaine but decided to change his lifestyle when his student John Belushi died of a drug overdose in 1982.

Del 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.

Del Close joined a Wiccan coven in Toronto and fought his drug habit together with Wiccan priests who performed a banishing ritual.

Del Close stopped using drugs and remained an active Pagan.

Del Close died of emphysema on March 4,1999, at the Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago, five days before his 65th birthday.

Del Close 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.

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

Del Close is featured in an extensive interview in Something Wonderful Right Away, a book about the members of the Compass Players and Second City written by Jeffrey Sweet.

From 1984 to 1988, Del Close wrote comic book stories in First Comics' Grimjack.

Ron Hubbard, in which Del Close claimed to have suggested to Hubbard, "Well, if you're worried about taxes, you should just turn Scientology into a religion".

In 2005, Jeff Griggs published Guru: My Days with Del Close detailing their friendship during the last two years of Close's life.

Guru gives a particularly detailed and complete picture of Del Close based on those shared hours.

Del Close co-authored the 1994 book Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation, which outlines techniques now common in longform improvisation and describes the overall structure of "Harold", which remains a common frame for longer improvisational scenes.

In 2022, Bob Odenkirk wrote a memoir Comedy, Comedy, Comedy, Drama, which includes excerpts of an interview with Del Close who was influential in the startup of his career.