DEL CLOSE:
The fatherof improv sketch
If you — like so many — are
unfamiliar with the name Del Close, you
might be more au fait with names like Dan
Aykroyd, Stephen Colbert, Rachel Dratch,
Tina Fey, Bill Murray, John Candy, Chris
Farley, Harold Ramis, Shelly Long, John
Belushi or Amy Poehler. These comedy
greats were all students of the late Del
Close, whose legacy to long-form
improvised sketch is widely recognised as
unmatched.
While various forms of sketch were
certainly being explored, performed and
publicly appreciated pre-Close, as far as
impro sketch goes this man was kind of
like the Colonel Sanders to fried chicken.
The Walt Disney to cartoon animation. The
Mark Zuckerburg to time suckage. Sure,
sketch was "a thing" before Close, but
thanks to his influence it would never be
the same again.
The American comedic innovator was
born in 1934 to a family in Manhattan,
Kansas. Throughout his career he was
repeatedly referred to as wacky, if not
certifiably mad. While teaching improv
Close would tell his students, "If it feels
weird, do it more."
Possibly the best example of this eccentricity was his dying wish, in 1999, to
donate his skull to the Goodman Theatre,
where it would be used in its productions
of Hamlet. He also requested that a
performance artist ingest some of his
ashes on stage. Ostensibly, both these
things happened.
Various biographies have suggested his
bizarre, often counter-cultural behaviour
stemmed from an estranged relationship
with his alcoholic father. Jeff Griggs, author
of Guru: My Days With Del Close, recounts a
story of Close's father ending his own life
by calmly drinking a glass of jewellery
cleaning acid mid-conversation with his
son.
"Del Close may not be well known outside of comedy
circles, but inside them he's a giant." - New Yorker
While the story's details would waver over
the years, the impact of his father's dubious
mental health remains unquestioned; in
response to Close's drug abuse and
repeated suicide attempts, the master of
impro sketch would often state "suicide is
hereditary, I just didn't get as bad a case as
my father had".
Following a string of turbulent experiences
growing up, at 17 years old Close left home
to join a touring side show — add 'professional fire eater' to his long list of performance credits. Five years later, at the
request of David Shepherd and Paul Sills,
he would travel to St Louis to join The
Compass Players: a cabaret revue troupe
where the founders of sketch company The
Second City would begin their collaborations.
In 1955 Close and the gang began to build
on the improvisational teachings of Viola
Spolin, taking only a few weeks to pitch the
concept that improvised sketch could in
fact be its own genre of performance.