Suggestion for character animation

I’m thing about this for few days.
I must animate character which has separate head and separate body.
Body comes in SWF, and i should attach head on it.
Obviously, there comes a problem - head does not follow body moves.
I tried attaching it as child - nothing.
I tried making bones between them - nothing.
At this moment, only thing is working is to animate head holder clip by hand, and than attach head to it…
Any suggestions?