Robert Clary
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Robert Clary (born March 1, 1926 as Robert Max Widerman) is a French-born American actor, published author, and lecturer.
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[edit] Early life and career
Clary was the youngest of 14 children. At the age of 12, he began a career singing professionally. In 1942, he was deported to the Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald with 12 other members of his immediate family. Clary was the only survivor [1]. When he returned to Paris after the war, he was ecstatic when he found that some of his siblings had not been taken away and survived the Nazi occupation of France.
Clary returned to the entertainment business and began making songs that not only became popular in France, but in America as well. He came to the United States in October of 1949. One of Clary's first American stints was a French language comedy skit on The Ed Wynn Show in 1950. Clary later met Merv Griffin and Eddie Cantor. This eventually led to Clary meeting Cantor's daughter, Natalie Cantor Metzger (whom he later married in 1965). Cantor later got Clary a spot on the Colgate Comedy Hour. His comedic skills were quickly recognized by Broadway, where he appeared in several popular musicals including New Faces of 1952 (which was later produced as a film in 1954).
[edit] LeBeau on Hogan's Heroes
In 1965, Clary was offered the role of Corporal Louis LeBeau on a new series called Hogan's Heroes. He later went on to fully accept the role when the pilot sold.
After his stint on Heroes, Clary appeared in a handful of feature films with World War II themes including the made-for-television film, Remembrance of Love (1982) about the Holocaust. Clary also made notable appearances on Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless.
Robert appeared in the 1975 movie The Hindenburg which dramatized a fictional plot to blow up the Nazi airship after it arrived at the Lakehurst, N.J. Air Station. His character was a showman/escape artist who hoped to use the airship in one of his shows.
Some sources have stated that Clary always appeared on television and in the movies wearing long sleeved shirts. Some of those sources say the purpose of this was to hide the identification tattoo he received while interred at Buchenwald. This is not possible; inmates at Buchenwald were not given identification tattoos.1
[edit] Recent developments
In 1997 Clary's wife died. Shortly thereafter he retired from acting (in 2001) and published his autobiography From the Holocaust to Hogan's Heroes.
Clary currently gives lectures today on his incarceration at Buchenwald and the Holocaust in general.
[edit] External links
[edit] Footnotes
- Note 1: The Buchenwald Report, prepared and finished three weeks after the liberation of Buchenwald by the Psychological Warfare Division of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force; first published in its entirety by Westview Press, with translation by David A. Hackett, 1999.
