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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Jamie Roberts

Robert Clary dead: Hogan's Heroes star and Holocaust survivor dies

Robert Clary has died at home in Los Angeles at the age of 96.

The actor's death was confirmed by his granddaughter to THR on Wednesday. He was best known for playing Corporal Louis LeBeau on TV series Hogan's Heroes.

Robert starred alongside Bob Crane in the series, which ran for six seasons between 1965 and 1971, about an American who led a group of Allied prisoners of war in a mission to beat the Nazis from the Luft Stalag camp. Robert was the last surviving member of the show's principal cast.

Prior to his acting career, Robert - who was the youngest of 14 children in a strict Orthodox Jewish family - he was sent o a concentration camp in Auschwitz with his family.

Larry Hovis (as Sergeant Andrew Carter), Bob Crane (as Colonel Robert E. Hogan) Richard Dawson (as Corporal Peter Newkirk) and Robert Clary (as Corporal Louis LeBeau) star in Hogan's Heroes (CBS via Getty Images)

He revealed to THR in 2015 his mum told him at the time to "behave" and "do what they tell you to do".

Heartbreakingly, his parents were murdered in the gas chambers and he was the only member of his captured family to survive his 31-month incarceration.

Robert later admitted his ability to perform potentially played a part in keeping him alive as he performed in front of SS soldiers every other week. Following his liberation, he was relocated to France before moving to Los Angeles in 1949.

Robert Clary and Cynthia Lynn in Hogan's Heroes (CBS via Getty Images)

Speaking about the horrid events for the first time in the 2015 interview he said: "For 36 years I kept these experiences during the war locked up inside myself. But those who are attempting to deny the Holocaust, my suffering and the suffering of millions of others have forced me to speak out."

And he admitted that playing a part in Hogan's Heroes was completely different to what he faced as the show was "about prisoners of war in a stalag, not a concentration camp".

Robert Clary in 2016 (Getty Images)

As well as the series, Robert also starred in movies such as Ten Tall Men and Thief of Damascus. As well as performing on the big screen, he had a career on Broadway.

He worked on the production of Seventh Heaven in 1955 alongside Ricardo Montalban and Bea Arthur.

On the small screen he featured on soap operas including Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless, while he also featured on a number of jazz records in the music industry.

Robert Clary in Hogan's Heroes (CBS via Getty Images)

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