HOGAN’S ZEROED
The last major original player of the Hogan’s Heroes stead has escaped from Stalag 13. Frenchman Robert Clary portrayed patriotic chef Corporal LeBeau, among the POWs who helped Colonel Hogan outwit the bumbling Nazi guards led by Colonel Klink. LeBeau’s culinary aptitude often persuaded would-be Klink allies to assist team Hogan, and his diminutive height allowed him to ferret into tight spaces despite his claustrophobia and caused Klink to malign him as “the cockroach”.
Though Clary wasn’t the only Jewish actor on the show – all of the Germans were played by Jews, with Werner Klemperer only accepting the role of Klink on the condition Klink never win – he was the only Holocaust survivor. He survived nearly three years at Auschwitz and Buchenwald by singing to SS guards, and of the 12 members of his immediate family to be deported, he was the only survivor. Nevertheless, he had no reservations taking the Hogan role, emphasising that the POW camp, if atypical for a sitcom setting, was nowhere near as bleak as concentration camps.
After Hogan, Clary was a soap regular with recurring spots in Days of Our Lives and The Bold and the Beautiful, roles in which his own experiences as a Holocaust survivor were weaved into the backstory. He was 96 and leaves final-season regular Kenneth Washington as the last surviving principal Hogan actor. Five teams proffer strudel to the Reaper and successfully coax him into giving points.
Robert Clary
1 March 1926 – 16 November 2022, aged 96
5 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀 5 POINTS)