Werner Klemperer

Intro

Werner Klemperer was an actor whose work encompassed Broadway, film, television and the concert platform. He became widely familiar as Colonel Wilhelm Klink in Hogan's Heroes, but the comic commandant was only one part of a career that included serious drama and spoken roles in musical works. Born in Cologne on March 22, 1920, he died in New York on December 6, 2000. His father was the conductor Otto Klemperer, yet Werner developed his own performing career rather than simply following his father's profession.

Career snapshot

The family left Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and Klemperer grew into an acting career in the United States. He trained at the Pasadena Playhouse and served in the United States Army during the Second World War, including entertainment work for troops. In his 1985 conversation with Bruce Duffie, he recalled choosing drama school instead of college and said that his father had supported his interest in acting without pressuring him to become a musician. That distinction helps explain the independence of his theatrical ambitions within a famously musical family.

The entry point

Hogan's Heroes ran from 1965 to 1971, placing Klemperer's Colonel Klink opposite Bob Crane's Colonel Hogan. The character's confidence and authority repeatedly collapsed under the prisoners' manoeuvres, making the commandant a central comic foil. The Television Academy records five consecutive nominations for the performance, from 1966 through 1970, with wins in 1968 and 1969. The 1965 publicity photograph in this gallery shows Klink with a violin. It preserves the character's theatrical presentation rather than standing as evidence of a concert appearance by Klemperer himself.

Screen identity and style

His dramatic screen work provides a different point of entry. In Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961, he played Emil Hahn, one of the defendants in the film's account of a postwar trial. The same year he took the title role in Operation Eichmann. Earlier appearances included Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man, and he later played Lieutenant Huebner in Ship of Fools. These credits put his celebrated television comedy beside roles dealing with authority and culpability in a much less comic register. His versatility is clearer when those performances are considered together.

Collaborations and patterns

Broadway remained a substantial part of his work. The Broadway League lists Heads or Tails and Galileo in 1947, followed by Twentieth Century and Dear Charles. He returned in The Night of the Tribades in 1977 and played Herr Schultz in the 1987 revival of Cabaret, earning a Tony nomination in 1988. That name should not be confused with Sergeant Schultz, John Banner's character in Hogan's Heroes. In 1995 Klemperer appeared as Serebryakov in Uncle Vanya, extending his Broadway record well beyond the years of his best-known television role.

Era reflection

Music offered another setting for his acting and speaking voice. In the Duffie interview, Klemperer discussed playing Pasha Selim, a speaking role in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio, at the Metropolitan Opera. He described attending rehearsals and other productions as an education in the workings of the opera house. His comments emphasised the actor's responsibility to make a performance convincing for an audience. Concert narration and operatic appearances therefore belonged to his professional life alongside television, rather than functioning merely as a family association with his father's achievements.

Legacy and rediscovery

The gallery moves from Klink publicity to a Password appearance and a later portrait photographed by Steve Garfield in 1998. The game-show image pairs Klemperer with host Allen Ludden, documenting him as a celebrity participant rather than as his sitcom character. Together, the three distinct photographs provide useful visual points across his public career. Rediscovering Klemperer through his Broadway credits, his dramatic films and his own discussion of musical performance reveals a working actor with a wider range than the single uniform and monocle most closely associated with him.

Selected screen roles

• Hogan's Heroes: Colonel Wilhelm Klink — 1965-1971
• Judgment at Nuremberg: Emil Hahn — 1961
• Operation Eichmann: Adolf Eichmann — 1961
• Ship of Fools: Lt. Huebner — 1965
• Cabaret (Broadway revival): Herr Schultz — 1987-1988
• Uncle Vanya (Broadway): Serebryakov — 1995

A career in pictures

Distinct photographs show a later personal portrait, Colonel Klink publicity and a game-show appearance. The Klink image is an archive crop and is not repeated as a second gallery item.

Later portrait (1998)

Portrait

Steve Garfield photograph dated December 18, 1998.

Colonel Klink with violin (1965)

Hogan's Heroes

CBS publicity photograph dated October 15, 1965; the archive supplies a crop of the original photograph.

Password with Allen Ludden (1971)

Celebrity appearance

Host Allen Ludden at left and Klemperer at right; the archive identifies the week of June 28-July 2, 1971.

Rewatch notes

• He won Emmys for Hogan's Heroes in 1968 and 1969.
• His Cabaret role was Herr Schultz, distinct from John Banner's Sergeant Schultz.
• Pasha Selim in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio is a speaking role.