Chris Colt

**Charles F. Harris** (June 22, 1946 – May 28, 1995), best known as **Chris Colt**, was an American professional wrestler. He was best known for his team with Ronnie Dupree as The California Hells Angels, as well as his rock and roll lifestyle and character.

## Professional wrestling career

Charles Harris, born on June 22, 1946, was a wrestling fan at a young age. His family moved to Oregon when he was five, and Harris later worked as a caddy for tag team star Don Fargo. By 1965, he started wrestling in New England, Massachussetts, for promoter Tony Santos as Maurice “The Magnificent” Chevier.

It was also in New England where Harris met fellow wrestler Russell Grobes. Before long, they were working as a tag team, and the two were billed as kayfabe "brothers" Paul and Ronnie Dupree. Initially known as The Hells Angels and later The Comancharos, the duo wore leather vests, relied on cheating and were burly brawlers who also bloodied their opponents. They feuded with the likes of Cowboy Bob Ellis and Luis Martinez and were primarily associated with the Arizona Athletic Association promotion. From 1966 to 1968, Paul and Ronnie held the company's tag team championships four times.

Other titles that the Duprees held included Big Time Wrestling's NWA World Tag Team Championship three times in 1969, and the NWA Gulf Coast Tag Team Championship two times from 1974 to 1975. The Duprees were said to be romantically linked in real life, however, in 1976, their partnership came to a close when Ronnie died following a heart attack while ring announcing.

Besides from his team with Ronnie, as Jim Dillinger, he teamed with Don Fargo (known by Jack Dillinger) as Chain Gang, winning the WWA World Tag Team Championship. Harris also used his most popular ring name **Chris Colt**, which was taken from gay pornography company Colt Studios, winning the NWA Texas Tag Team Champioship with Bobby Duncum. He also won singles gold in the NWA Mississippi Heavyweight Championship, Big Bear Promotion's North American Heavyweight Championship four times, and the NWA Mid-America Heavyweight Championship two times.

He used the Chris Colt name following Ronnie's death and would adopt a rock and roll esque character, which was true to life as he idolized the likes of Joe Cocker and Janis Joplin. This character saw him clad in piercings, gothic makeup, leather biker vests, safety pins inserted into his forehead, and making his entrance to "Welcome To My Nightmare" by Alice Cooper as his theme song. Colt suffered from drug issues and was once fired from competing in England as “The American Dream” because of unreliability.

An infamous incident took place in Phoenix in 1975, when Colt was wrestling inside a steel cage. Before the match, Colt had injested the drug peyote, and this caused Colt to climb into the ring high, hallucinating spiders all over the structure. He panicked and started brawling with fans and security as he fled the arena. Due to Colt's drug issues, he was said to never work sober, but promoters saw no issue as he could still draw heat from the audience.

In 1986, Harris wrapped up his career in Alabama as the neo-nazi Chris von Colt, but continued to compete until the following year for Pacific Northwest Wrestling. Once wrestling was over, Colt, who was openly gay, starred in gay porn movies (e.g. “Sex Aggression: Jack Husky’s First Night At Chris Colt’s Wrestling Academy”) and was rumored to have become a born-again Christian in the 90s.

## Death

Harris died from AIDS on May 28, 1995, at the age of 48, at a homeless shelter in Seattle, Washington. Many reports list his year of death as 1996, but his grave stone reads 1995.

Ed “Moondog” Moretti, one of Colt's tag team partners, said “I can honestly say he was one of the greatest workers I’ve ever seen. I’d rank him right up there with Ray Stevens and Pat Patterson. Politics, paranoia and just Chris being Chris kept him from the big, big money. But they could not keep him from greatness.”