Hogan’s Heroes was a sitcom set in a Nazi German prisoner-of-war camp during the Second
World War.
The series ran for six seasons from September 1965 to April 1971.
Notably, the program had the longest broadcast run for a series inspired by the war.
While the unique setting of Hogan’s Heroes certainly drew in many viewers, the majority
who stuck around to experience the series from start to finish did so because of it’s
an excellent cast.
Bob Crane Starred as Co.
Robert E. Hogan.
His character coordinated an international crew of Allied prisoners secretly running
a special ops group from the camp.
Then you had Werner Klemperer who played Col. Wilhelm Klink, a gullible commandant of the
camp, and John Banner who portrayed the hapless yet lovable Hans Schultz.
Fans of the 1960s sitcom just got some bad news.
As of November 2022, all Hogan’s Heroes Cast Members Have Officially Died.
Keep watching to learn about who just passed while taking a look back at some of the other
cast members of the iconic series who are no longer with us.
Robert Clary
Robert Clary was a French-born survivor of Nazi concentration camps who portrayed a prisoner
of war in Hogan’s Heroes.
Clary’s character Corporal Louis LeBeau was one of the most feisty prisoners of the
bunch.
He was also a gourmet chef and a patriotic Frenchman.
Frequently throughout the series, he was referred to as “The Cockroach” by Klink and Schultz.
LeBeau trained the guard dogs to be friendly towards him and his fellow prisoners.
He also used the dog kennels as entrances for the prisoners allies arriving at the camp.
Clary was born in Paris, France in 1926.
He was the youngest child of fourteen.
Sadly, 10 of his siblings died in the Holocaust.
When he was 12, Clary began a singing career by first performing on a French radio station.
He later would study art in Paris.
Since he was Jewish, in 1942, Clary was deported to the Nazi concentration Camp in Ottmuth.
He was tattoed with the identifying number A5714 on his left forearm.
He was later transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Talking to the LA Times years after his release, Clary revealed that the only way that he was
able to keep his spirits up and survive that traumatic ordeal was by using his talent for
singing and dancing to entertain his fellow detainees.
Clary was very young and naive when he was placed in the concentration camps and he hadn’t
fully realized just how dire of a situation he was in at the time.
If he had, he said that he likely wouldn’t have survived.
After playing Corporal LeBeau on Hogan’s Heroes, Clary went on to have recurring roles
in the daytime soap operas Days of Our Lives and The Bold and the Beautiful.
In 2001, Clary published a memoir entitled From The Holocaust to Hogan’s Heroes: The
Autobiography of Robert Clary.
In his later years, he spent several years traveling around North America speaking about
the Holocaust.
He also enjoyed painting photographs that he would take in his travels.
At 96, Clary passed away at his Los Angeles home on November 16, 2022.
Prior to his death, he was the last surviving cast member of Hogan’s Heroes.
Bob Crane
Best known for his lead role of Colonel Robert Hogan in Hogan’s Heroes, Robert Edward Crane
was an American actor, radio personality, disc jockey, and drummer.
He was also the Hogan’s Heroes cast member who met the most tragic end.
Crane was born in Waterbury, Connecticut.
In 1928.
He started playing the drums when he was 11 and began his career as a radio personality
in New York City.
Eventually, he moved back to Connecticut before moving once again to Los Angeles where he
was the host of the number one rated AM radio show.
In the 60s, Crane started acting.
Eventually, he landed the biggest role of his career, that of Col. Robert Hogan, in
1965.
Crane remained in that role throughout the series run and in the process, he received
two Emmy nominations.
After Hogan’s Heroes came to a close in 1971, Crane’s acting career went on the
decline.
He found himself frustrated by the lack of roles that he was being offered and eventually
found work performing in dinner theater.
Crane returned to TV in 1975 when he was given his own sitcom on NBC, The Bob Crane Show.
Unfortunately, that series received fairly poor ratings and was given the ax after just
thirteen weeks.
After that series was canceled, Crane returned to doing dinner theater performances.
He would occasionally guest star on various television shows, but he would never again
reach the same heights as when he starred in Hogan’s Heroes.
Tragically on June 29, 1978, Crane was found beaten to death in his Scottsdale, Arizona
apartment while he was on tour for a dinner theater production of the play Beginner’s
Luck.
Officially, his murder remains unsolved, although many believe that he was killed by a regional
sales manager for Sony Electronics named John Carpenter.
That being said, Carpenter maintained his innocence until his death in 1998.
Werner Klemperer
This German-American actor, singer, and stage entertainer was the best know for portraying
Colonel Wilhelm Klink in Hogan’s Heroes.
For his work on that series, Klemperer was honored twice with Primetime Emmy Awards for
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
Klemperer was born in Cologne, Germany in 1920.
He came from a very musical family but he said that he had the little musical aptitude
of his own.
His mother was soprano singer Johanna Geisler while his father was the famous composer Otto
Klemperer.
His father was Jewish but later converted to Catholicism before eventually returning
back to Judaism.
In 1933, the Klemperer family immigrated to the US where they settled in Los Angeles.
There, Otto found work as a conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Werner began acting when he was a student at University High School.
He eventually enrolled in acting courses at the renowned Pasadena Playhouse before serving
in the US Army during the second world war.
While he was stationed in Hawaii, Werner joined the Army’s Special Services unit.
For the next couple of years, he toured the Pacific theater entertaining the troops.
After the war was over, Werner performed on Broadway before transitioning into television.
He also appeared in numerous films during his acting career such as the 1956s The Wrong
Man, 1961s Judgment at Nuremberg, and 1958s Houseboat.
On TV, Wener appeared in shows like Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Gunsmoke,
The Untouchables and Have Gun Will Travel, before landing his role on Hogan’s Heroes.
Werner continued to act, albeit sporadically, up until the early 90s.
His last screen role was reprising his role as Colonel Klink in an 1993 episode of The
Simpsons.
On December 6, 2000, at the age of 80, Werner Klemperer died of cancer at his home in Manhattan.
John Banner
This Austrian-born American actor was best known for his role as Sergeant Schultz in
Hogan’s Heroes.
Schultz was a clumsy, hapless, but extremely lovable man who often gave out information
to the prisoners in exchange for bribe money.
Oftentimes, this intel was related to LeBeau’s gourmet recipes.
Hogan and his men often took part in subversive activity right in front of Schultz, knowing
full well that he would never report it.
He was far too afraid of getting in trouble and being sent off to fight at the Russian
frontlines.
Banner was born to Jewish parents in 1910 in Stanislau, Austria-Hungary.
After studying law at the University of Vienna, he shifted gears and decided that he wanted
to become an actor instead.
In 1938, while he was performing with an acting troupe in Switzerland, the Nazis annexed Austria.
Banner then immigrated to the US where he quickly learned how to speak English.
In 1942, Banner joined the US Army Air Corps and became a supply sergeant.
He served in the Army Air Corps until 1945.
Sadly, just like his fellow Hogan’s Heroes star Robert Clary, Banner lost many of his
family members to the Holocaust.
After performing on Broadway in three productions, Banner began appearing in films.
Throughout his acting career, he appeared in more than 40 movies including 1942s Once
Upon a Honeymoon and 1943's Chetniks!
The Fighting Guerrillas.
Besides his role on Hogan’s Heroes, Banner appeared in more than 70 TV shows between
1950 and 1970.
After Hogan’s Heroes ended in 1971, Banner only made a handful of appearances in sitcoms
like The Chicago Teddy Bears and The Partridge Family.
Eventually, he retired to France with his second wife.
Banner died following an abdominal hemorrhage on his 63rd birthday on January 28, 1973,
At the time of his passing, he was visiting some friends in Vienna.
Richard Dawson
This English-American comedian, game show host, and actor was best known for playing
Corporal Peter Newkirk on Hogan’s Heroes.
He was born in 1932 in Hampshire, England As a child, he and his brother were evacuated
during World War II to escape the bombing of several of England’s major port cities.
When he was 14, he ran away from home so that he could join the British Merchant Navy.
While serving, he pursued a career in boxing and earned roughly $5,000 in matches.
After being discharged, he started pursuing a career in comedy under the name Dickie Dawson.
He made his first TV appearance in 1954 and was featured on the BBC variety show The Benny
Hill Showcase.
After appearing in several other BBC variety programs, Dawson moved to the US where he
began hosting a late-night talk show called the Mike Stokey Show.
He went on to make guest appearances on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and in 1965, he landed
a minor role in the film King Rat.
Not long after that, he was cast Corporal Newkirk on Hogan’s Heroes.
Later in his career, he was a regular panelist on Match Game.
He was also the original and third host of Family Feud.
Dawson passed away at the age of 79 from esophageal cancer in Los Angeles on June 2, 2012.
Ivan Dixon
This actor, director and producer was born in Harlem in 1931.
After receiving his education at a private black boarding school in North Carolina called
the Lincoln Academy and at North Carolina Central University, Dixon studied drama at
Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
His acting career began on the stage.
After performing on Broadway, he moved on to TV series and films.
While he was best known for his role as Staff Sergeant James Kinchloe on Hogan’s Heroes,
he also starred in the 1964 independent drama film Nothing But a Man and in the 1967 TV
film The Final War of Olly Winter.
Dixon would later direct and produce many episodes of TV series.
He was also active in the civil rights movement of 1961, serving as the president of Negro
Actors for Action.
Dixon died from complications of kidney failure on March 16, 2006 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He was 76.
With that, we’ll go ahead and wrap things up.
Looking back at all of these gifted actors, it’s amazing just how solid of a cast Hogan’s
Heroes had.
It’s also very moving how so many stars of the show were directly affected by the
horrors of the Holocaust.
You would think that after experiencing such a traumatic thing, they would have wanted
nothing to do with a TV show that was set in a Nazi POW camp, but by tapping into their
direct knowledge of that tragic chapter in world history, they were able to deliver strikingly
authentic performances, albeit within the confines of a show that had a very implausible
premise.
Who was your favorite character on Hogan’s Heroes, and did you know that so many of the
stars of that series were directly affected by the Holocaust?
Let us know in the comments.
And as always, thanks for watching!