The comedian/improviser Del Close willed his skull to a theatre to be in Hamlet (http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/as-del-lay-dying/Content?oid=1109931 http:

The comedian/improviser Del Close willed his skull to a theatre to be in Hamlet (http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/as-del-lay-dying/Content?oid=1109931 http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/as-del-lay-dying/Conten...): > "I give my skull to the Goodman Theatre, for a production of Hamlet in which to play Yorick, or for any other purposes the Goodman Theatre deems appropriate." At a press conference on July 1, 1999, Charna gave Robert Falls, the Goodman's artistic director, a skull resting on a red velvet cushion inside a Lucite box. Falls held out the skull in his right hand and spoke. "Alas, poor Del! I knew him, Horatio: A fellow of infinite jest..." > But the skull wasn't Del's. Charna came clean in the October 9, 2006, issue of the New Yorker. After Del died, hospital personnel laughed at her request to remove the head, suggesting that she contact the Illinois Society of Pathologists. They too ultimately refused. After two days, she reluctantly had the body cremated in its entirety. Then she went skull shopping at the Anatomical Chart Company in Skokie. She purchased a skull there, and to make it resemble Del's she and her sister pulled out as many teeth as they could manage before turning it over to the Goodman. > The truth doesn't seem to matter to most of those who knew him. Robert Falls still keeps the skull on his bookshelf. The attitude of most of Del's friends is that if it wasn't originally Del's skull, it is now.