{"id":5003,"date":"2026-09-01T21:19:35","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T21:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dartmagazine.com\/?p=5003"},"modified":"2026-09-03T13:25:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T13:25:39","slug":"not-being-there-by-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dartmagazine.com\/?p=5003","title":{"rendered":"Not Being There by Chance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Steve Rockwell<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Jerzy Kosi\u0144ski’s end-of-life note was short and to the point: \u201cI am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call the time Eternity.\u201d Hemisphere House in New York City became the setting for Kosi\u0144ski’s final, increasingly difficult years. On May 3, 1991, he died by suicide in his West 57th Street apartment bathroom, while his wife slept. Subsequently, she discovered him naked in a half-filled bathtub with a plastic bag tied around his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jerzy
Jerzy Kosinski<\/strong>, Toronto, 1988 by Rick McGinnis<\/strong>. One of just 22 frames of the writer, shared over two rolls with portraits of Kathy Acker and Jay McInerney. Taken in the little alcove off the lobby of the then Harbour Castle Hilton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I attended Kosi\u0144ski’s 1987 Toronto lecture, at the end of which he quite eagerly consented to take part in my Pick a Number from 1 to 99<\/em> project. At the corner of Hazelton and Yorkville streets, within a week or so after the talk, a chance encounter with the author took place. Information about a future exhibition possibility of my “Numbers,” was conveyed. At the point where Kosinski was handing me his business card, however, a female companion arrived with a bulky shopping bag. Popping the trunk of the parked car, she urged, “Come on, Jerzy. We gotta go!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Steve
Steve Rockwell, Pick a Number Between 1 and 99<\/strong>, 1987, printed form with ink, 8.5 x 5.5 inches. Form signed by Jerzy Kosi\u0144ski on May 3, 1987 at his Toronto “Being There” talk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A memorable part of Kosi\u0144ski’s Being There<\/em> talk, was learning about Peter Sellers’ absolute obsession with wanting to play Chauncey Gardiner<\/em> in the film of Kosi\u0144ski’s book. As a contrast to Clouseau<\/em>‘s voices, disguises, and physical comedy, his Being There<\/em> character became a suppression of performance \u2013 two extremes of the same actor. The Clouseau character had evolved considerably. Initially, in the 1963 Pink Panther<\/em>, he was not intended to dominate the film. David Niven’s jewel thief, Sir Charles Lytton, was closer to the central figure. Sellers’ performance, however, was so distinctive that Clouseau effectively took over the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Sellers in Return of the Pink Panther<\/strong> (1975). His Inspector Jacques Clouseau with oversized light trench coat, gloves, narrow tie, moustache, and absurd detective’s hat became one of cinema’s most recognizable comic images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Excerpts of Kosi\u0144ski’s Toronto talk were preserved by Harper’s Magazine<\/em> under the title, “Cake Killer.” Here the author makes the point that modern culture aggressively forces the writer out from behind his books into the predatory glare of public celebrity. Annie Leibovitz photographed him as a shirtless polo player for the cover of New York Times Magazine<\/em>. The result: “Once a novelist is portrayed half-naked, as I was, on the cover of a magazine, his profile clearly changes.” They lose their literary uniqueness, making them “no different than any public figure.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Peter
Peter Sellers as Chance<\/strong> walking across water in the 1979 film adaptation of Being There<\/strong> directed by Hal Ashby<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kosi\u0144ski considered himself an autofiction writer, a literary genre that blends autobiography (factual life history) and fiction. The author of a memoir is expected not<\/em> to lie. With autofiction, the reader understands that the author will make things up for artistic effect. It’s also a given that our memories are unreliable. Personally, I had been cautious and suspicious of the autofiction genre. One of the objectives of my 1987 Pick a Number<\/em> art project, was to clearly separate the art from the factual with a “signed and dated agreement.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho Killed Jerzy Kosi\u0144ski?\u201d was a 2023 Vanity Fair<\/em> article by Wayne Lawson. Lawson argues that Kosi\u0144ski’s suicide cannot be understood separately from the public destruction of his identity as a writer. To this he adds: serious physical illness, fear of cognitive decline, and profound depression. The larger question might be: Did Jerzy Kosi\u0144ski die partly because the public could no longer distinguish the man from the mythology he had created around himself? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Roman
Roman Polanski<\/strong> photographed at the moment when Rosemary’s Baby<\/em> had made him internationally famous and when his circle overlapped with Kosi\u0144ski, Wojciech Frykowski, Sharon Tate, and Abigail Folger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Is it far fetched to consider lingering survivor guilt from 1969? Jerzy Kosi\u0144ski has stated that he received an invitation to visit Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate at Cielo Drive on the night of the Manson murders. Kosi\u0144ski and Roman Polanski had known one another since their youth in Poland and had remained connected after both achieved international success. He had received a letter from Wojciech (Voytek) Frykowski and Abigail Folger while travelling in Europe, with plans for the Kosi\u0144skis eventually to meet the group in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jerzy
Jerzy Kosinski, The Hermit of 69th Street<\/strong> book cover. Perhaps Kosi\u0144ski’s most revealing work \u2013 an author who can no longer escape the meanings projected onto himself<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the night of Friday, August 8, 1969, Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski and Jay Sebring were murdered at 10050 Cielo Drive. An airline baggage mix-up had diverted Kosi\u0144ski and Kiki’s luggage while returning from Europe. The delay prevented them from continuing to Los Angeles as planned. Polanski, in his 1984 autobiography, denied that Kosi\u0144ski had been invited to the house that night. Yet, a friend of Kosi\u0144ski later wrote to The New York Times<\/em> asserting that he had seen an invitation addressed to Kosi\u0144ski. In any case, Polanski himself had been away in London at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Peter Greenaway’s Drowning by Numbers<\/em><\/strong> (1988) with Joely Richardson, Juliet Stevenson, and Joan Plowright<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Film maker Peter Greenaway released Drowning by Numbers<\/em> in 1988. The film is structured around three drowning-murders with a hidden conceptual counting out from 1 to 100. On May 2, 1991, the night before his death, Kosi\u0144ski went to dinner and then a viewing of Drowning by Numbers<\/em> with Polish jazz singer Urszula Dudziak. He died the following morning, in the bathtub of his Hemisphere House apartment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Steve Rockwell Author Jerzy Kosi\u0144ski’s end-of-life note was short and to the point: \u201cI am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call the time Eternity.\u201d Hemisphere House in New York City became the setting for Kosi\u0144ski’s final, increasingly difficult years. On May 3, 1991, he died by … <\/p>\n

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