A Canadian stage actor who played King Lear at 22 and spent much of his screen career as the villain, at the Tudor court or in Klingon leather. He was better at it than the parts usually deserved, and quieter than his reputation suggests.
Fi1m perspective
In Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Richard Burton's Henry roars and Geneviève Bujold's Anne answers back, and at the edge of the frame stands a man who does neither. John Colicos plays Thomas Cromwell as a listener. He is in nearly every room, he says little, and by the end of each scene he knows more than anyone else in it. We found we had started watching him while Burton was talking, waiting to see what he would do with what he had just heard, and the answer was usually nothing, not yet, which is the right answer for Cromwell.
The stage had him first and kept the best of him. He began acting in Canada in the late 1940s, went to Britain and joined the Old Vic, where he played Lear at 22. He played Lear again at the Stratford Festival in 1964, worked on Broadway and in London, and was Winston Churchill in Soldiers (1968). The screen was slower to want him. Forbidden Journey (1950) came first, and the parts that got him noticed did not arrive until the 1960s, Cromwell among them.
Then television found a use for the voice. As Kor in Star Trek (1967) he was the first Klingon commander anyone saw, and he had a hand in how Klingons looked, suggesting to Gene Roddenberry something leathery and modelled on Genghis Khan. As Count Baltar in Battlestar Galactica (1978–79) he was the traitor the series kept coming back to. He returned to Kor for three episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine between 1994 and 1998, by then in his late sixties. Those two parts are what most people remember him for, and there is no point pretending otherwise.
The trouble is what came in between. After he moved to Hollywood he was cast as the villain again and again, in episodes of Mission: Impossible and in General Hospital, and his film work, The Changeling (1980), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), was supporting and sparse. He knew what he was. "I've always remained a 19th-century, slightly hammy, overblown actor. I prefer gigantic parts with huge emotions to playing kitchen drama," he said in 1989. The gigantic parts stayed on stage. The screen gave him the villains, and he took them.
If you want to see what he could do with almost nothing, watch Cromwell in Anne of the Thousand Days and count how few lines he needs. Then go and find Kor, and hear the same voice turned all the way up.
Biography
John Colicos (10 December 1928 – 6 March 2000) was a Canadian actor. He trained and worked extensively in theatre, appearing with the Old Vic in London and the Stratford Festival in Canada, where he played leading Shakespearean roles including King Lear.
He became widely known for science-fiction television roles, originating the Klingon commander Kor in the Star Trek episode "Errand of Mercy" (1967) and reprising the part in three episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1994–1998). He also played Count Baltar in the original Battlestar Galactica series (1978) and voiced Apocalypse in the X-Men animated series (1992).
Colicos appeared in films including Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), The Changeling (1980) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), as well as numerous television guest roles.
