SKULDUGGERY.(The Talk of the Town)

In 1999, as Del Close lay in a Chicago hospital with terminal emphysema, he was still troubleshooting his plan to outwit death. Close, the improv-comedy guru whose students included Bill Murray and Mike Myers, had made provisions in his will for his skull to go to the city's Goodman Theatre, so that he could play Yorick in "Hamlet." Now he took the hand of Charna Halpern, his longtime creative partner and executor, and said, "Promise me you'll make that skull thing happen, no matter what." She promised. After Close died, Halpern presented the Goodman with his cranium, and the former Merry Prankster's second act--the skull has appeared onstage in "Arcadia," "Pericles," and "I Am My Own Wife"--soon became a Chicago legend.

In July, however, the Chicago Tribune published an article suggesting that the skull at the Goodman belonged to someone else. The article pointed out that the screws holding the skull together are rusty with age; that the skull has a hole at the top indicating prior service as part of a teaching skeleton, and an incision where the brain was removed for autopsy (which Close's wasn't); and that it has eleven teeth (Close wore dentures). Nonetheless, Halpern insisted to the paper that the skull was Close's.

She now pleads guilty--with an explanation. "After Del died, I asked the hospital people if they would help me by taking off the head, and they just laughed," she said recently. "They suggested I call the Illinois Society of Pathologists. I told the pathologists, 'I will give you Del's body, and it's a great body, because you can study the effects of smoking, alcohol, cocaine, and heroin on the brain. All I need is the skull.' They thought about it, and then said, 'There's a fine line between research and art, and we're concerned about our funding.' I called labs, researchers, anatomy shops, and it was 'No, no, no.' "

After two days, the hospital insisted that Halpern remove Close's body from the morgue, and she reluctantly had it cremated, head and all. A few days later, she went in search of a stand-in skull. Accompanied by her older ...