I used to be a fairly competent Halloween prankster myself but my petty efforts at scaring people were sorely surpassed by something I witnessed, in the late 1960’s, at the home of a real expert in the field.
In those days when he was not off to Broadway or acting in some epic movie John Colicos and I were fairly constant companions.
Our paths first crossed when he showed up at my Riding School in Toronto. He had just signed a contract to play Thomas Cromwell in a movie called Ann Of A Thousand Days- the part required him to ride a horse and he needed some lessons. Coincidently I had just begun trying my hand at acting, mostly little bit parts on TV, and was sorely in need of some expert coaching.
John needed a lot of work on his horsemanship and my acting skills were definitely in need of tweaking so we struck a deal; I would teach him to ride and in exchange he would take on the thankless job of coaching me in my thespian endeavors.
To make a long story short, after a considerable length of time John became a fairly competent rider but his assessment of me after he had force fed me through enough TV and movie small parts to qualify for a membership in ACTRA was that I should definitely not quit my day job.
That aside, our friendship endured. He was an early morning regular at my breakfast table before he took off on his long rides through the park and I often found myself at his home in downtown Toronto.
On one Hallowed Eve, during that period, I got a frantic phone call from him saying that I had to get over to his place immediately. It wasn’t convenient but I complied. An hour later, when I arrived at his place, the sun had set and the entrance to his house, save for the light of several glowing jack o' lanterns perched on the stoop, was in darkness.
John, dressed in a long, flowing purple robe and wearing the somber face makeup that was part of his professional persona, was at the door to greet me.
After stepping outside and glancing nervously up and down the street, he hurried me in, issuing instructions, “I want you to experience what I am going to do for the trick or treaters when they start coming - so do as I say. I will be welcoming the kids in and telling them to go into the living room while I go into the kitchen to get their candy. I’ll go into the kitchen now and you proceed like you’re one of the kids.”
I made my way down the darkened hall and when I turned into the living room I was confronted by John, still clad in his purple robe, sitting on a bench, decapitated, with his severed head resting on his lap.
“ Jesus Cheeerist! “ I blurted, then stood dumfounded.
The real John rushed up to my back laughing so hard that he could hardly talk. The incredibly accurate copy of his head had been made for a part he had played in a movie. He told me which one at the time but now I can’t remember.
He had been given the prop as a souvenir and it had just been stored away collecting dust until as he put it “This fabulous Halloween idea occurred to me.”
I wasn’t so sure that it was such a good idea. If a grown man’s first response after the sight of the headless actor was to check his underwear, how would it effect the little gaffers who were due at any minute?
My objections were ignored and shortly the first contingents of kids began to arrive, enter the inner sanctum, and then run terrified and screaming back out the door - few with candy in their bags.
John, in the tradition of “the show must go on” continued this morbid meet and greet until most of the neighborhood kids had been duly accounted for and probably traumatized and in need of counseling.
I stayed with him until the bitter end expecting that a posse of concerned parents would, at any moment, appear to lynch him. When he finished the performance and locked the front door I chose to slip out the back.
John confided later that there weren’t any serious repercussions in the neighborhood. He wasn’t sued and since he didn’t attend the local church, he wasn’t a candidate for shunning.
For my part I’m convinced that there are a hundred or so of the kids, now adults, that have the memory of a headless John Colicos emblazoned on their memories forever. I know I do.
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