John Colicos

John Colicos (December 10, 1928 – March 6, 2000) was a Canadian actor born in Toronto, Ontario, to a Greek father and a Canadian mother, who was raised in Montreal. His Broadway career spanned from 1956 to 1968, encompassing productions including King Lear, Mary Stuart, The Devils, and Soldiers. Beyond the stage, Colicos built a substantial screen career, becoming particularly recognized among science fiction audiences for originating the role of Klingon commander Kor in Star Trek: The Original Series and for portraying the villain Baltar in the original Battlestar Galactica.

Colicos began acting as a teenager with the Canadian Art Theatre and trained at the Brae Manor Playhouse in Knowlton before making his professional debut with the Montreal Repertory Theatre. He also worked on CBC Radio dramas alongside Douglas Rain. In 1951, he won the Best Actor Award at the Dominion Drama Festival, the same year he traveled to England to join the Old Vic for the 1951–52 season. At twenty-two, he took on the title role in King Lear there, becoming the youngest actor to play the part at that institution. His Old Vic work also included a production of Timon of Athens, and he subsequently appeared in The Ghost Writers on the West End.

His Broadway debut came in 1956, when he played Edmund in Orson Welles' production of King Lear. The following year he starred in Mary Stuart at the Phoenix Theatre and joined the American Shakespeare Theatre for two seasons. In 1961, Colicos became part of the Stratford Festival, remaining for four seasons. In 1964, he played King Lear in the Festival's first-ever staging of that play. His later Broadway credits included The Devils during the 1965–66 season, Serjeant Musgrave's Dance in 1966, and Soldiers in 1967–68, in which he portrayed Winston Churchill. In 1982, he played the role of Sir in The Dresser at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton.

Colicos made his screen debut in the 1950 Canadian film Forbidden Journey. He appeared as Monks in a television adaptation of Oliver Twist for the DuPont Show of the Month in 1959, and portrayed the unscrupulous Thomas Cromwell in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days. On television, he played the villain in three episodes of Mission: Impossible, appeared in seven episodes of Mannix, and portrayed William Cornelius Van Horne across four episodes of the CBC docu-drama The National Dream. He also played Judge Flood, the last character shot and killed in the run of Gunsmoke, in episode 631, titled Hard Labor.

His science fiction work began in earnest in 1967, when he originated the role of Commander Kor in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode Errand of Mercy, the first Klingon character to appear in the franchise. Colicos had collaborated with Gene Roddenberry on the visual design of the Klingons, and when budget constraints ruled out elaborate makeup, he proposed the leathery, Genghis Khan-inspired appearance with dark skin and hair that was ultimately used. He went on to portray Lord Baltar in the original Battlestar Galactica film and television series. More than twenty-five years after his initial Star Trek appearance, he reprised the role of the 140-year-old Kor in three episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, broadcast between 1994 and 1998. In 1981, he played Mikkos Cassadine on the ABC soap opera General Hospital, and from 1993 to 1995 he voiced the villain Apocalypse in the Fox Kids animated X-Men series. He also appeared twice as the rogue alien Quinn during the first season of War of the Worlds in 1988–89. His final performance was a reprisal of Baltar in the concept demonstration trailer Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming, shown at science fiction conventions in 1999.

In 1982, Colicos participated in TVOntario's educational production Prophecy with John Colicos, which went on to win the Gold Medal at the Atlanta International Film Festival. He had also appeared in a CBS soap opera, The Secret Storm, in 1966, and in the 1973 television series The Starlost.

In his personal life, Colicos married Mona McHenry in 1956; they divorced in 1981 and had two sons, Nicolas, also an actor, and Edmund. The family resided in a Victorian-style mansion in Toronto, where Colicos maintained a theatrical research library of approximately 4,000 volumes. He received the Order of Ontario in 1997. Colicos died in Toronto on March 6, 2000, at the age of 71, following a series of heart attacks.