Gourt Home::Gourt :: Werner Klemperer
Werner Klemperer (March 22, 1920 – December 6, 2000) was an Emmy Award-winning comedic actor, best known for his role as Colonel Klink on the television sitcom, Hogan's Heroes.
Beginnings
Born into a musical family in Cologne on March 22, 1920, he was the son of Johanna Geisler, a soprano, and of the great conductor Otto Klemperer. Klemperer was also musically talented. An accomplished concert pianist, he also broadened his acting career by performing as an operatic baritone and a singer in Broadway musicals.
A "Halbjude" (half-Jew), Werner fled the Nazi regime with his family in 1933; they all made their way to Los Angeles, where his father obtained a conducting post. Werner began acting in high school and enrolled in acting courses in Pasadena before joining the United States Army to fight in World War II.
While stationed in Hawaii, he joined the Army's Special Services unit, spending the next few years touring the Pacific entertaining the troops. At the end of the war, he worked on Broadway, and the advent of rapid growth in the television industry opened new doors to him.
Films and television
Klemperer received significant notice for his role in the award winning 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg. The film presents a fictionalized account of the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials, with Klemperer portraying "Emil Hahn," a Nazi judge and one of the defendants at the trial. Prior to this, he had a small role in the 1957 Errol Flynn film "Istanbul". He also played the title role in the film "Operation Eichmann".
He is best remembered as Colonel Klink in Hogan's Heroes, which ran on CBS from 1965 to 1971. Klemperer was very conscious of the fact that he was playing a German officer under the command of Nazis, and agreed only to play Klink on the condition that he would be portrayed as a fool and that he never succeeded. For his performance, Klemperer received four Emmy Award nominations for best supporting actor in each of the show's six seasons, winning in 1968, and again in 1969.
Klemperer reprised the role of Klink in an episode of The Simpsons in 1993 as Homer's guardian angel/spirit guide in the episode: "The Last Temptation of Homer" (episode # 5.9). Additionally, he appeared in character and costume as Klink in a "Batclimb cameo" on the original "Batman" television series in the 1960's.
Later career
After his famous father’s passing in 1973, Klemperer expanded his acting career with musical roles in opera and Broadway musicals. He earned a Tony Award nomination for his performance in Cabaret. A member of the Board of Directors of the New York Chamber Symphony, Werner Klemperer served as a narrator with many other U.S. symphony orchestras. He also made occasional guest appearances on television dramas, and took part in a few studio recordings, notably a version of Arnold Schönberg's, Gurrelieder, in 1979.
Werner Klemperer died from cancer on December 6, 2000, aged 80. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.
Trivia
Werner was a pole vaulter in high school. In an episode of Hogan's Heroes, Colonel Klink tried to see if he could pole vault over a fence.
He was once asked by a town in California to be the Grand Marshal of its Memorial Day parade. The protests about having a "Nazi" as Marshal caused the town to disinvite him. Ever the gentleman, Klemperer agreed, but wrote a letter to the local paper stating that as a man who had been persecuted by the Nazis as a Jew and as a WWII veteran of the U.S. Army, he felt somewhat confused at the uproar.
1920 births | 2000 deaths | German-Americans | United States Army soldiers | American actors | American television actors | American World War II veterans | Batman actors | Cancer deaths | Entertainers who died in their 80s | Jewish American actors | Law & Order actors
"Werner Klemperer"