Robert Clary
| Robert Clary | |
|---|---|
Clary in 1953
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| Born |
Robert Max Widerman March 1, 1926 Paris, France |
| Occupation | Actor, painter, author, lecturer |
| Years active | 1951–2001 |
| Known for | Corporal LeBeau in Hogan's Heroes |
| Spouse(s) | Natalie Cantor Metzger (m. 1965; d. 1997) |
Robert Clary (born Robert Max Widerman; March 1, 1926) is a French-American actor, published author, artist and lecturer. He is known for his role in the television sitcom Hogan's Heroes as Corporal Louis LeBeau. Clary is one of the last two living principal cast members of Hogan's Heroes (with Kenneth Washington, who joined the sitcom in its final season).
Born in 1926 in Paris, France, Clary was the youngest of 14 children. At the age of twelve, he began a career singing professionally on French radio and also studied art at the Paris Drawing School. In 1942, because he was Jewish, he was deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Ottmuth. He was tattooed with the identification "A5714" on his left forearm. He was later sent to Buchenwald.
At Buchenwald, he sang to an audience of SS soldiers every other Sunday, accompanied by an accordionist. He said, "Singing, entertaining, and being in kind of good health at my age, that's why I survived. I was very immature and young and not really fully realizing what situation I was involved with.... I don’t know if I would have survived if I really knew that."
Writing about his experience, Clary said, "We were not even human beings. When we got to Buchenwald, the SS shoved us into a shower room to spend the night. I had heard the rumors about the dummy showerheads that were gas jets. I thought, 'This is it.' But no, it was just a place to sleep. The first eight days there, the Germans kept us without a crumb to eat. We were hanging on to life by pure guts, sleeping on top of each other, every morning waking up to find a new corpse next to you. ... The whole experience was a complete nightmare — the way they treated us, what we had to do to survive. We were less than animals. Sometimes I dream about those days. I wake up in a sweat terrified for fear I'm about to be sent away to a concentration camp. But I don't hold a grudge because that's a great waste of time. Yes, there's something dark in the human soul. For the most part human beings are not very nice. That's why when you find those who are, you cherish them."
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