Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Spooky

Returning home from a party at around 2:00 AM on February 24, 1957, the famous American actor Telly Savalas (famous for his role as Detective Kojak) runs out of gas on a highway far from his home.

He waits for a while for another car to pass and possibly hitchhike to the nearest gas station. However, Savalas does not meet any cars, only heavy rain. He decides to go in search of a gas station - on foot. After a few hundred meters, luck smiles at him, he hears the sound of a car behind him, although the car was driving with its lights off, which seems stupid or at least strange to Savalas. A black Cadillac stops and the driver asks Savalas if he can help him. The actor accepts and gets in the car, although he is uncomfortable with the whole thing with a guy driving without his lights at that time of night.

Savalas tells the driver to take him to the nearest gas station. He agrees and drives. Telly tries to start a casual conversation but the man doesn't answer anything except the question 'Where are you driving at this time of day?' to which he gets the answer - 'at the crossroads of my destiny'. Savalas doesn't try to make small talk after this, thinking that the driver is crazy or drunk...

Arriving at the first gas station, Savalas reaches for his wallet and with horror remembers that he left it at the party. He is pulled out of the uncomfortable situation by the strange interlocutor who gives him money for gas and finally speaks up to not worry because he will return the money when he is able. Savalas, who has to go to the studio to record in the morning, cannot afford to be absent from recording because he is still at the beginning of his career and accepts the money, but before that he writes down the address and name of the man who, hesitating, still tells him who he is and where he lives. After a few days, Savalas wants to repay the favor and shows up at the given address.

He rings the doorbell and asks the woman who answers if Harry Aganis lives here. The woman asks what the matter is and Savalas explains why he is coming. The woman starts behaving hysterically and tells Savalas to leave. The actor, intrigued by the whole situation, gives the woman his Actors' Union membership card, explains who he is and describes Harry Aganis, her husband, who helped him on the highway. The woman tearfully gives him a picture of her - deceased husband - and Savalas recognizes the guy who lent him money. He also learns that Harry Aganis died in 1954 in a car accident on the same stretch of road where he met him. Harry Aganis, returning from a graduation anniversary, collides with a truck and dies on the spot.

Telly Savalas recounted this incident until his death in 1994, unable to rationally explain what happened that night, and on two other occasions when, driving later on the same road, he passed a black Cadillac driving without its lights on.

(Roger Mortis, 053)

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