Not sure if you know... he met his wife Gretchen when she was a contestant on Family Feud a number of years before they got married.

They were still married when Richard died and they had a daughter together, so obviously it worked out despite the odd beginning of the relationship.

LAST EDITED ON 06-03-12 AT 11:23 PM (EST)

Since he's passed, is there anybody left from the Hogan's Hero's television series?

Not many are still up and kicking:
Robert Clary (LaBeau)
Kenneth Washington (Baker)
Cynthia Lynn (Helga)

And, given his open hostility over not getting the role of Hogan, we well as other things, I don't think many of his co-stars would have been mourning him.

Interesting side note: all of the actors playing the main German characters were Jewish, including Sgt Schultz, Col. Klink, General Burkhalter, and Col. Wolfstetter.
Werner Klemperer's parents fought in the anti-Nazi resistance during the war.

You know, there's something I always wondered about with Dawson. When Hogan's Heroes started up, Dawson was married to British sex symbol Diana Dors, and they had two young sons, but his marriage was falling apart. During the second season of Hogan's Heroes, Dors returned to England, leaving the boys with Dawson (for good, as it turned out), and got a divorce.

Today, we know that Diana Dors was interested in kinky sex, multiple partners and videotaping sex, all of which became public knowledge during her third marriage. But we also know now that Bob Crane was also interested in all of the same things. You have to wonder if there might not have been a reason that . . . well, you're all smart people, so you know where I'm going with this.

It sure does make you wonder. I have never heard that about his ex-wife before. Bob Crane, on the other hand, very well documented.

LAST EDITED ON 06-04-12 AT 04:49 PM (EST)

Robert Clary (LeBeau), also Jewish, survived three years in the concentration camps. Clary says in the recorded commentary on the DVD version of episode "Art for Hogan's Sake" that he spent three years in a concentration camp, that his parents and other family members were killed there, and that he has an identity tattoo from the camp on his arm ("A-5714"). Likewise John Banner had been held in a (pre-war) concentration camp and his family was exterminated during the war. Leon Askin was also in a pre-war French internment camp and his parents were killed at Treblinka.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogan%27s_Heroes

Banner attempted to sum up the paradox of his role by saying, "Who can play Nazis better than us Jews?" Ironically, although Klemperer, Banner, Caine, Gould, and Askin play typecast World War II German types, all had actually served in the US Armed Forces during World War II — Banner (Schultz) and Askin (Burkhalter) in the US Army Air Corps, Caine (Hochstetter) in the US Navy, Gould (General von Schlomm / General Von Lintzer / General von Scheider) with the US Army, and Klemperer (Klink) in a US Army Entertainment Unit.

The link below is the movie in which John Banner first employed the characterization of a German border guard that he later turned into Sgt. Schultz. If you've never seen it, the end segment is worth seeing just to see Banner, who provides the only comic relief in the whole movie (but isn't an incompetent, unlike Schultz -- it's actually a better Schultz portrayal):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36_Hours

Wow. I sourced up the trailer for that on youtube, it seemed familiar, it may have been the one James Garner film I got totally bored with after about 20 minutes and turned off. Shame I missed the good part, the one good part.

My bad.

Banner had an interesting career, he played a lot of heavies during the '40's thru early '60's, initially working with phonetically written scripts which helped him to learn English. But he could play comedy as well, which worked for him on TV.

I always thought Schultz knew more than he would admit, and was secretly rooting for/working for the POWs.

Rest in peace, Richard. Family Feud just isn't as good since he left.

I guess this means Robert (LeBeau) is the last of the Heroes.

RIP Richard. Although, I thought he was already gone.

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