father had just died from the suicide that Close had described. Thomas refused, saying in the documentary that he didn’t think it would be a good joke and that there was an obligation to the audience to create laughs—not just to make them gasp. Close replied, “Now perhaps you’re not used to this particular kind of horrifying honesty, but I expect the same thing from you and nothing less.” Close was addicted to cocaine but decided to change his lifestyle when his student John Belushi died of a drug overdose in 1982. Close had recently read the book A Witch's Guide to Psychic Healing by Yvonne Frost, which argues that the modern Pagan religion Wicca can provide spiritual healing. He joined a Wiccan coven in Toronto and fought his drug habit together with Wiccan priests who performed a banishing ritual. He stopped using drugs and remained an active Pagan. Death and legacy Close died of emphysema on March 4, 1999, at the Illinois Masonic Hospital (now the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center) in Chicago, five days before his 65th birthday. He bequeathed his skull to Chicago's Goodman Theatre to be used in its productions of Hamlet, and specified that he be duly credited in the program as portraying Yorick. Charna Halpern, Close's long-time professional partner and the executor of his will, conveyed a skull that she claimed was his, in a high-profile televised ceremony on July 1, 1999. A front-page article in the Chicago Tribune in July 2006 questioned the authenticity of the skull, however, citing the presence of teeth (Close was edentulous - toothless - at the time of his death) as well as showing the presence of autopsy marks (Close was never autopsied) among other problems. Halpern stood by her story at the time but admitted three months later, in a The New Yorker interview, that she had purchased the skull from a local medical supply company. Bill Murray organized an early 65th birthday party and wake, shortly before Del's anticipated death as he lay on his deathbed in a Chicago hospital, memorialized in a two-part video. After Close's death, his former students in the Upright Citizens Brigade founded the annual Del Close Marathon, three days of continuous improvisation by hundreds of performers at various venues in New York City. Notable students Dan Aykroyd Ike Barinholtz James Belushi John Belushi Matt Besser Stephen Burrows Heather Anne Campbell John