CARL KOLCHAK
Real Name: Carl Kolchak
Occupation: News Reporter
Known Relatives: None known
Base of Operations: Chicago, Illinois; formerly Las Vegas, Nevada and Seattle, Washington
First Appearance: The Night Stalker (1972)
History: Carl Kolchak started his journalistic career in Las Vegas, but his
curiosity and search for the truth began when he realized that a number of
serial killings resembled that of a vampire and that the police were bending
over backwards to conceal the fact from the public. When he tried to tell the
true story in the newspaper, he was fired from the paper and coerced to leave
town in order to silence the case.
Carl’s predilection for realizing there was a lot more being hushed by the police continued to Seattle and then to Chicago where his old friend Tony Vinchenzo gave him a job as a reporter on the tabloid known as the Independent News Service. The tabloid gave Carl his outlet on stories in a column that later inspired young Fox Mulder, a future government agent with an interest in the paranormal. Kolchak continued to be the proverbial thorn in the side of the police department until Vinchenzo's death, upon which Carl became editor. As editor, Kolchak published his most notorious stories into a book called "The Kolchak Files," a publication with moderate success until it was yanked off the shelves by reportedly high-ranking government officials. Kolchak fought to regain rights to his book from the CIA until passed away in February 2006.
In 2005, a short-lived TV series called "The Night Stalker" was adapted from Carl's book for television audiences. Stuart Townsend portrayed a much younger Carl Kolchak and several of the storylines were based on actual cases from Kolchak's files, but whether the series was cancelled because the public thought it was too incredible, or by the same high-ranking government and law officials who Kolchak long struggled against, is a matter of debate.
Comments: Kolchak was based on a character created by Jeff Rice in his “Kolchak Tapes.”