27 Facts About Werner Klemperer

Werner Klemperer was best known for playing Colonel Wilhelm Klink on the CBS television sitcom Hogan's Heroes, for which he twice won the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards in 1968 and 1969.

Werner Klemperer was born in Cologne, Germany, to a musical family but he said that he had little musical aptitude.

Werner Klemperer's father was renowned orchestra conductor Otto Klemperer and his mother was soprano Johanna Geisler.

Werner Klemperer's father was Jewish by birth; he converted to Catholicism but later returned to Judaism.

Werner Klemperer's grandfather was part of the Jewish community in Prague, and his grandmother was a Sephardic Jew from Hamburg, Germany.

The Werner Klemperer family emigrated to the United States in 1933, settling in Los Angeles, where Otto Werner Klemperer became conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Werner Klemperer began acting as a student at University High School and enrolled in acting courses at the Pasadena Playhouse before joining the United States Army to serve in World War II.

Werner Klemperer played a German government officer in the 1959 episode, "The Haunted U-Boat", of the series One Step Beyond.

Werner 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 Werner Klemperer portraying Emil Hahn, a Nazi prosecutor and one of the defendants at the trial.

Werner Klemperer played the title role in the 1961 film Operation Eichmann, opposite his future co-star John Banner.

Werner Klemperer guest-starred in the first Brian Keith television series, Crusader, a Cold War drama that aired on CBS.

In 1963, Werner Klemperer portrayed a professor of psychology in "The Dream Book", an episode on the sitcom My Three Sons.

Werner Klemperer is best known as Colonel Wilhelm Klink: the bungling, cowardly, conceited, and self-serving Kommandant of Stalag 13 on Hogan's Heroes, which was broadcast on CBS from 1965 to 1971.

Werner Klemperer made a cameo appearance in character as Klink in the Batman episode "It's How You Play the Game" and as Officer Bolix in the Lost in Space episode "All That Glitters" in 1966.

Werner Klemperer played a bumbling East German official in the 1968 American comedy film The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz, directed by George Marshall and starring Elke Sommer and several of his costars from Hogan's Heroes, including Bob Crane and John Banner.

Werner Klemperer later starred in Wake Me When the War Is Over in 1969, playing the role of a German major, Erich Mueller, alongside Eva Gabor.

Werner Klemperer played a villain in an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea titled "The Blizzard Makers".

Werner Klemperer expanded his acting career with musical roles in opera, and earned a Best Featured Actor Tony Award nomination.

Werner Klemperer made occasional guest appearances on television dramas, and took part in a few studio recordings, notably a version of Arnold Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder with the Boston Symphony and Seiji Ozawa, in 1979.

In 1993, Werner Klemperer reprised the role of Klink in an episode of The Simpsons as Homer's guardian angel and spirit guide in the episode "The Last Temptation of Homer".

Werner Klemperer declined other offers to reprise the character, including one from talk-show host Conan O'Brien.

Werner Klemperer made his final appearance on Broadway in 1995 in the Circle in the Square production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, in which he played Professor Serebryakov.

For many years, Werner Klemperer was an elected member of the council of Actors' Equity Association, and was a vice president of the union at the time of his death.

In 1997, Werner Klemperer married his fourth wife, television actress Kim Hamilton, after dating her for 21 years.

Werner Klemperer died of cancer at his home in Manhattan on December 6,2000, at the age of 80.

Werner Klemperer was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.