Goodbye King Lee

Within the past couple of weeks, I found out that a good friend of mine I worked with at The Beast (a Kansas City Haunted House), along with JJ and Brian, had liver cancer. He was mid to late 40's when I met him. The cancer spread so quickly that really nothing could be done about it. I got the chance to talk to him last week a couple of different times while he was at home. He said he was in a lot of pain, but just talking to a friend helped ease that. He was still in good spirits, coherent, and still retained his sense of humor. He wasn't exactly a religious fellow, but he did appear to have a change of heart the last time I talked with him. Given some of the things he said to me, I felt assured that when his time inevitably comes, he'll be with the Lord, and that his suffering will be over.

At The Beast, he played the role of a King who would dance with his Queen. The scene was set up to where it looked like a two ghost images are dancing through objects. The illusion was simple, but effective, and accomplished with lighting and reflections. King Lee, as us "spooks" affectionately called him, would approach a burial slab and raise up his departed Queen. They would then dance a routine that he made up, and to end the scene he would lay her back down. By this time, the crowd of people going through have stopped and watched this whole play they put on, and would clap. Being the gracious King, he would raise his Queen up and they'd bow to the audience. He did this practically every night for over 5 years, with different Queens, and sometimes even by himself. That's six hours of improvisation there!! A very talented person. In 1994, I even think he was the Runner-Up Spook of the Year in a little awards ceremony we would hold on the last night of the season.

Less than an hour ago, I received a phone call indicating that King Lee Thompson had passed away around 5:45 pm CST tonight.

You will be missed.

May 10, 2002
7:53 PM

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