Robert Clary, Corporal LeBeau on 'Hogan's Heroes,' Dies at 96

[brooklynite]

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Born Robert Max Widerman in Paris on March 1, 1926, Clary was the youngest of 14 children in a strict Orthodox Jewish family. At age 12, he began singing and performing; one day when he was 16, he and his family were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz.

“My mother said the most remarkable thing,” Clary told The Hollywood Reporter’s Peter Flax in late 2015. “She said, ‘Behave.’ She probably knew me as a brat. She said, ‘Behave. Do what they tell you to do.'”

Clary’s parents were murdered in the gas chamber that day.

At Buchenwald, Clary sang with an accordionist every other Sunday to an audience of SS soldiers. “Singing, entertaining and being in kind of good health at my age, that’s why I survived,” he told Flax.

Read more: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/robert-clary-dead-hogans-heroes-1235263555/

[mcar]

1. That is remarkable

As a child, I, and my family, loved that show. My father was a WWII vet and he really enjoyed it.

However, my uncle had been a POW. He couldn't watch it because it was so unrealistic.

[brooklynite]

22. One key point: Officers and Enlisted were kept in separate camps.

LeBeau would never have been in the same camp as Hogan.

[at140]

2. Living to age 96 is a spendid accomplishment!

Bless her soul, my mother made it past 100. Very rare as well.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

25. Yes,

I happen to have plans for my 97th birthday. On August 12, 2045, there will be a total eclipse of the sun. I hope to see it. My birthday is August 23.

For background, I have seen any number of partial eclipses. I saw the 2017 total eclipse with some friends, in Nebraska. It was amazing. We stayed in Kearney, NE, and on the day of the eclipse drove a bit north to Ravenna. They were well prepared there. Three parks, one of which charged an entrance fee but had astronomer-types there to help people. One of my friends was a physics professor and had lots of his own instruments along, so we set down in a different park. It was amazing. People were friendly and chatty and sharing. I'd baked chocolate chip cookies which I passed out. Others shared watermelon and various other treats.

The next day, getting gas to head home, took much longer than usual, as all of us at the gas station had seen the eclipse and wanted to share that experience. Later that day, getting dinner at a restaurant, the people there had also seen the eclipse and wanted to share. What an amazing experience.

There will be another total eclipse in 2024, which will pass through Texas, and I've warned several friends who live there that I will be visiting them.

The 2045 eclipse? In 2017 the eclipse lasted a bit over two minutes. In 2024 it will be a bit over 4 minutes. But in 2045? Six full minutes. OMG! I share this with many people, especially young ones. I love telling someone that they will be younger than I am now in 2045. Please, please, if you are much younger, tell everyone you know to see the 2045 eclipse. If I am still alive and living in Santa Fe, I will only need to get myself to Colorado Springs (and I've actually told friends in that city to plan on my visiting them) which is in the path of totality.

Oh, and if you have never seen totality, trust me, it's incredible. Even 99% still isn't totality.

[LeftInTX]

30. Man, I'm gonna be pushing 89 in 2045...Weird.....

I was thinking I was gonna be like 75 or something....

[at140]

44. Haha I will be 105 in 2045

Lets 3 of us get together in 2045 and watch that eclipse.

[Dave in VA]

3. Thanks for posting this

I was not aware of his history.

He brought many smiles to my family.

[brooklynite]

8. Robert Clary, Werner Klemperer, John Banner (Schultz), Leon Askin (Burkhalter), and...

Howard Caine (Hochstetter) were all Jewish.

[keithbvadu2]

31. Klemperer and Banner insisted that their characters be buffoons.

[Kennah]

34. I read an interview with Klemperer ...

... and he said to the Executives that if they ever made the Allies the heavy, he would walk.

[Ray Bruns]

41. I did not know that.

[ificandream]

4. "Hogan's Heroes" was one of the most politically incorrect shows ever.

But it was sure funny back then.

[pansypoo53219]

17. one of my childhood favorite shows.

[Maeve]

23. Before we knew what that meant

But the Nazis were fools and/or creeps, the Allies were good guys and we would win in the end.

Loved that show as a kid. And very fond of LeBeau.

[sarisataka]

5. Adieu Mssr. Robert

[niyad]

6. Rest in power, brave spirit.

Thank you for posting this. I had no idea.

[TheRickles]

7. I'm finding it hard to reconcile this -

that a concentration camp survivor would appear in a comedy about a Nazi prison camp. According to the linked article, he wrote about his Holocaust experiences decades later, saying that the prison camp and the concentration camp were as different as night and day. He ceertainly had a very interesting life and career (and also married Eddie Cantor's daughter).

[ificandream]

9. His history has been out for a long time.

That said, I think it was quite an accomplishment to do the series.

[Lars39]

10. They used humor to ridicule the Nazis

A final “finger”, perhaps. A way to cope.

[Mr.Bill]

18. Aviators in WWII went to camps

that were run by the Luftwaffe and while they were no picnic, they were country clubs compared to the Nazi death camps. There were still some remnants of the traditional respect German aviators had for their adversaries in WWI. I have read stories about Germans in that war honoring captured pilots with a banquet at their air base before sending them to detention.

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Several actors on Hogan's Heroes fled the Nazi's or were impacted in other ways

Werner Klemperer's father fled Nazi Germany, seems to me John Banner also

[thucythucy]

14. Several of the cast of "Casablanca" were also refugees

from Germany and Austria, including the actor who played Major Strasser.

[Crowman2009]

28. The actor who played Major Strasser also starred in the silent classic "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"

[VGNonly]

33. Conrad Veidt

(Major Strasser) was a bit actor before WWI. He served on the Russian front, then went back to acting. His wife was Jewish. The Nazi Regime told him he could continue acting if he divorced her. He refused, left Germany for Britain, then to the US, supporting the Allied effort and the Jewish people.

[ificandream]

42. The tears of some of the actors in that scene in Rick's Bar were real.

Amazing movie all around, but that added to the magnificence of it.

[sarisataka]

15. Yes, all of the actors who played the main German characters

were Jewish and each fought in the war.

Klemperer (Klink), Banner (Schultz), Leon Askin (Burkhalter) were Austrians who fled the Nazis. Klemperer in the mid 30's, Banner and Askin in 1940. Both of the latter lost family members in the concentration camps.

Howard Caine (Gestapo Major Hochstetter), who was also Jewish, was born in Tennessee. He served in the U.S. Navy during the war, in the Pacific.

[JudyM]

24. Wow, I had no idea about that. Really puts a new spin on it.

[LeftInTX]

29. It was probably their accents and sense of humor (comedic warmth) that got them the roles.

Lets face it, a few German actors made great cold Bond Villains, but Hogan's Heroes was a sitcom.

[Mickju]

16. His father was Otto Klemperer, world famous conductor.

I had some of his recordings in my youth, back in the sixties.

[Demovictory9]

12. Oh this guy...rip

https://images.app.goo.gl/UxoT5xYZyU1DaDQHA

[stonecutter357]

13. .

[Shellback Squid]

20. he was great and what a story to tell!

RIP Corp LeBeau

[jg10003]

21. The interesting jewish cast of Hogan's Heroes

Robert Clary was a French Jew who spent three years in a concentration camp (with an identity tattoo from the camp on his arm, A-5714). His parents and other family members were killed there.

John Banner was born to Jewish parents in Austria-Hungary. In 1938, he was performing with an acting troupe in Switzerland when Hitler annexed Austria to Nazi Germany. Banner emigrated to the United States from Switzerland.

Werner Klemperer was jewish. His father was a famous orchestra conductor who moved his family to America when Hitler came to power in 1933.

Leon Askin was born into a Jewish family in Vienna. Askin fled Austria to the United States in 1940 after having been beaten and torturted by the SS. His parents died in the Treblinka death camp. Askin lived to be 97 years old.

Howard Caine was a jewish American.

[LeftInTX]

27. Stalag 17 was directed by Billy Wilder, who was Jewish. The German commander was Otto Preminger

Preminger was Jewish
Hogan's Heroes was a spoof of Stalag 17.
I think Stalag 17 is a comedy, while not as crazy a Hogan's Heroes.

[The Grand Illuminist]

26. That would make Kenneth Washington

who replaced Ivan Dixon, the last Hogan's Hero.

[keithbvadu2]

32. Sgt Schultz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Banner

Sgt Schultz (Hogan's Heros) escaped from the Nazis and served in the US Army Air Corps.
He posed for a recruiting poster.
He and Klink were Jews playing the part of Nazis.
They insisted that their characters be portrayed as buffoons.

[Kaleva]

38. Banner claimed his character Sgt Schultz was not a Nazi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Banner

[Historic NY]

35. reposez en paix Louie.

[link:

|]

[cstanleytech]

36. Damn!! I had been expecting this accouncement to eventually happen but it still sucks.

Still I found it interesting that (assuming I remember correctly) he did not know how to cook unlike the character LeBeau.

[Different Drummer]

43. Schultz loved LeBeau's apple strudel. n/t

[twodogsbarking]

39. Never forget. Never.

[whistler162]

40. A little light side