Robert Clary was an actor well known for his role as LeBeau on the classic sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes.” He was a Holocaust survivor, coming to the United States in 1949 to continue his entertainment career.
- Died: Wednesday, November 16, 2022. (Who else died on November 16?)
- Details of death: Died in his home in Los Angeles at the age of 96.
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Hogan’s Heroes Star
Robert Clary was born in Paris, France and began a singing career at a young age. During the Nazi occupation, he and his family were sent to Auschwitz where his parents died that day in the gas chambers. Clary was moved to the Buchenwald concentration camp where he entertained every other Sunday singing with an accordion player. He said that helped him survive while every member of his family sent to concentration camps did not make it out alive.
Liberated in 1945, he resumed his singing career recording songs that were popular in France. He came to the United States in 1949 to record for Capital Records. He began to act in films and was mentored by Eddie Cantor, marrying one of his daughters. He appeared in the 1963 Paul Newman film “A New Kind of Love.” In 1965, he started his signature role playing French Corporal LeBeau on the sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” which ran for 6 seasons. The show starred Bob Crane as the leader of a group of Allied prisoners of war in a German camp who ran an underground operation to defeat the Nazis. Clary’s LeBeau was known for his cooking skills that helped get hapless Colonel Klink out of trouble.
After “Hogan’s Heroes,” he starred in the 1975 disaster film “The Hindenburg” and on soap operas. He worked with the Simon Wiesenthal Center and spoke about the Holocaust at universities across the country.
Notable Quotes
“I had to explain that [Hogan’s Heroes] was about prisoners of war in a stalag, not a concentration camp, and although I did not want to diminish what soldiers went through during their internments, it was like night and day from what people endured in concentration camps.” – He wrote in his 2001 memoir “From the Holocaust to Hogan’s Heroe’s”
“For 36 years I kept these experiences during the war locked up inside myself,” he once said. “But those who are attempting to deny the Holocaust, my suffering and the suffering of millions of others have forced me to speak out.” – Interview with the Hollywood Reporter in 2015
Tributes to Robert Clary
Full Obituary: The Hollywood Reporter
