Robert Clary, a late-French veteran actor best known for playing Corporal LeBeau on the World War II-themed sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, died at the age of 96.
Kim Wright, Clary’s granddaughter, reported that he died on Wednesday morning at his Los Angeles residence. On Wednesday morning, Clary, who was Eddie Cantor’s protégé and wed one of his five daughters, passed suddenly.
Colonel Robert E. Hogan, portrayed by Bob Crane in the CBS television series Hogan’s Heroes, was an American who led an international group of Allied POWs in a covert plot to topple the Nazis from within the Luft Stalag 13 camp. Six seasons of the programme were shown, from September 1965 to April 1971.
The 5.1-footer Using his culinary skills, Clary, who played the patriotic Cpl. Louis LeBeau, helped the puzzled Nazi Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Werner Klemperer) avoid conflict with his superiors. Clary liked to hide in confined corners, enjoyed dreaming about girls, got along well with the security dogs.
Clary was the only surviving member of the show’s original main cast.
Clary was born Robert Max Widerman in Paris on March 1, 1926. He was the youngest of 14 children raised in a strict Orthodox Jewish home. At the age of 12, he began singing and performing, and at the age of 16, his family was taken from him and transferred to Auschwitz.
There are rumours that Clary’s parents were killed that day in the gas chamber.
Clary had “A-5714” permanently inked on his left forearm as a means of identification while serving a 31-month sentence that required him to make 4,000 wooden shoe heels every day in a factory. He was the only survivor of his kidnapped family.
After being freed, Clary went back to France in May 1945, where she played in nightclubs. To record for Capitol Records, he moved to Los Angeles in 1949. A year later, he made an appearance on a CBS variety show hosted by comic Ed Wynn in a parody of French comedy.
Clary met Cantor after acting in films like Thief of Damascus (1952) and Ten Tall Men (1951). Cantor invited Clary to perform at the posh La Vie en Rose club in New York. He caught the attention of producer Leonard Sillman, who chose Clary for the Broadway musical revue New Faces of 1952.
Clary worked closely with the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles for more than 20 years, giving addresses at institutions across the country.
Natalie Cantor, the second child of Eddie Cantor and a gifted painter, died in 1997 after 32 years of marriage to Clary.
