John Colicos

John Colicos
Born December 10, 1928
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Died March 6, 2000 (aged 71)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation Actor
Years active 1950–1999
Spouse(s) Mona McHenry (1956-1981)

John Colicos (December 10, 1928 – March 6, 2000) was a Ukrainian Canadian actor.[1] Born in Canada, he was a distinguished stage actor in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.

Career

He is mentioned in The Kenneth Williams Diaries, where the acerbic British actor/comedian mentions how impressed he was by the performance of the young understudy who took over a stage performance as King Lear, when the aging, alcoholic star who was supposed to play the role was unable to perform. (Colicos is identified in the index, not in Williams' actual diary entry). In 1957 he appeared in Mary Stuart at the Phoenix Theatre in New York City and in 1963 he appeared in Troilus and Cressida at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. His other New York theatre credits are King Lear (1956), The Devils (1965–1966), Serjeant Musgrave's Dance (1966) and Soldiers (1968).

He appeared as Monks in an early television DuPont Show of the Month, in 1959. He also gave memorable performances in 1966 in The Secret Storm, as the unscrupulous Thomas Cromwell in the 1969 film version of Anne of the Thousand Days and as the governor of Umakran in the episode "The Goddess Calabra" from the 1973 TV show The Starlost.

In 1982 he ventured into educational TV with TVOntario's award-winning production of Prophecy with John Colicos. The writer/director, Dr. Robert Gardner, recalled his initial meeting with the famous actor. "I had seen him scores of times in movies and television and I was very nervous. In truth, though, he was a joy to work with. Once he sensed that you were prepared he was thoroughly professional. His presence in the ninety minute production was the main reason it went on to win the prestigious Gold Medal at the Atlanta International Film Festival."

On TV, he is perhaps best remembered for playing the Klingon Commander Kor in Star Trek, as well as playing Count Baltar in the original Battlestar Galactica movie and television series. He appeared in several episodes of Mannix, and Mikkos Cassadine in August through September 1981 on General Hospital's "Ice Princess" story arc.

He has the distinction of being the first Klingon commander seen in the Star Trek franchise. He also appeared numerous times in episodic television throughout the 1960s, most notably portraying the villain on no less than three episodes of Mission: Impossible. He appeared in four episodes of the eight-episode CBC docu-drama The National Dream, as the "railway general", William Cornelius Van Horne. Several years after his Battlestar Galactica tenure, Colicos again ventured into science fiction. He portrayed power-mad Mikkos Cassadine, a demented scientist bent on freezing the world on the ABC soap opera General Hospital during the height of the "Luke and Laura" frenzy. He also was the voice of the X-Men villain Apocalypse/En Sabah Nur (1993–1995) in the Fox Kids animated X-Men television series in the nineties, and twice played rogue alien Quinn in the first season (1988–1989) of War of the Worlds.

About 30 years after his initial appearance in Star Trek, Colicos reprised his role as the 140-year-old Kor for three episodes in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He also appeared in TV commercials in the 1990s for America's Best Contacts & Eyeglasses. Colicos' final acting appearance was his reprise of Count Baltar in the concept demonstration trailer Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming, aired at many science fiction conventions in 1999.

The last person shot and killed on Gunsmoke (television series 1955 to 1975) was John Colicos as Judge Flood in episode 631, Hard Labor.

Colicos was born in Montreal, Quebec and died on March 6, 2000, at the age of 71, after a series of heart attacks.

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ "John Colicos". BFI.

External links