Farewell Robert Clary

In the news this week was the passing of Robert Clary. He was the last surviving original cast member of Hogan’s Heroes (Kenneth Washington joined the cast for Season 6 as a replacement for Ivan Dixon).

Robert Clary (foreground) with Larry Hovis from Hogan's Heroes - IMDB

It is the series Hogan’s Heroes I know Clary best by, in his role of Corporal LeBeau, who was a master cook, frequently bribing Sgt. Schultz with food, as our band of heroes did their best to make fools out of the enemy.

Some of the antics that LeBeau did during the series included posing as an accomplished artist who could identify a fake painting (Manet’s The Boy with the Fife) that Burkhalter intended to give as a present (and it was the real thing, they went to Paris to get a fake painted to replace it), a truck load of stolen art that Hogan and company liberated from yet another German General and returned to France via the Underground, posed as a dance instructor (a woman dance instructor, no less), and as a work from Vichy France to infiltrate a German lab (and blow the place up). Clary also had opportunity to sing in Hogan’s Heroes.

Of course, this is just some of the things Clary as LeBeau did in Hogan’s Heroes. He was also, like the rest of the PoWs at Stalag 13, a womanizer, always after the pretty ladies, especially the French ones, because he is, well, French! But then, what else would expect from a ‘60s sticom about a bunch of guys in a PoW camp who also blew up bridges in their spare time.

I should add that not only is Hogan’s Heroes a favorite series of mine, it is also a favorite of my daughter’s as Little Miss gave me the complete series on DVD a few years back. We have binge-watched the entire series a couple of times since.

Over the years, Robert Clary as Corporal Louise LeBeau, provided me many hundreds of hours of entertainment, going all the way back to when Hogan’s Heroes was in its original broadcast run. He had a good sense of comic timing, as well as a good singing voice. In the series, he stood up for what was good, right, and just for France, even to the point where LeBeau planned his own escape to join General de Gaulle in the eventual liberation of his beloved France.

As a remembrance of Robert Clary, we watched the episode “Art for Hogan’s Sake” (the one with Manet’s painting mentioned above) as a family, first with Clary’s commentary turned on, then again without his commentary. Clary, in his commentary for the episode, talks mostly of his time working on Hogan’s Heroes, and how he became apart of the series, somewhat by accident as the production team wanted a Frenchman for filming the pilot, and Clary just happened to be in town at the time. The rest of that part of Clary’s story with the series is history, as the show ran for six seasons. More importantly, Clary discusses to some length, his survival of the Holocaust and his experience in the concentration camps, and how he survived those atrocities. In the commentary, Clary mentions that back around 1980, with the rise of Holocaust deniers, he decided it was time for him to speak out about his experiences, and for people to not hate other people.

Thanks, Robert Clary, for all the years of entertainment you gave us. Rest well.