Updated: August 05, 2025

Werner Klemperer ( March 22, 1920 to December 6, 2000 ) was an American actor. He 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.

Klemperer served in the United States Army during World War II, then began performing on the Broadway stage in 1947. He appeared in several films during his early acting career, such as The Wrong Man ( 1956 ), Judgment at Nuremberg ( 1961 ), and Houseboat ( 1958 ), and he had numerous roles on television shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents ( 1956 ), Perry Mason ( 1957 ), Maverick ( 1957 ), Gunsmoke ( 1958 ), The Untouchables ( 1960 ), and Have Gun â€" Will Travel ( 1961 ), prior to his Hogan's Heroes role.

Early Life:

Klemperer was born in Cologne, Germany, to a musical family but he said that he had little musical aptitude. His father was renowned orchestra conductor Otto Klemperer and his mother was soprano Johanna Geisler. He had a younger sister named Lotte ( 1923 to 2003 ). His father was Jewish by birth; he converted to Catholicism but later returned to Judaism. His mother was Lutheran. His grandfather was part of the Jewish community in Prague, and his grandmother was a Sephardic Jew from Hamburg, Germany. Otto Klemperer was a first cousin of Victor Klemperer.

The Klemperer family emigrated to the United States in 1933, settling in Los Angeles, where Otto Klemperer became conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic ( 1933 to 1939 ). 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. While stationed in Hawaii, he joined the Army's Special Services unit, spending the next years touring the Pacific entertaining the troops.

After the war, he performed on Broadway, appearing in Heads or Tails and Bertolt Brecht's Galileo, both in 1947, the comedy Twentieth Century by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur in 1951, and Dear Charles, another comedy, in 1955.

Career:

Klemperer's first major film role was as a psychiatrist in Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man ( 1956 ). Earlier that year in Death of a Scoundrel he had a smaller role as the lawyer of the hero / villain portrayed by George Sanders. He played a German government officer in the 1959 episode, "The Haunted U-Boat", of the series One Step Beyond. Also in 1959, he appeared as a Frenchman in the episode "Fragile" of the Western TV series Have Gun â€" Will Travel. He 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 prosecutor and one of the defendants at the trial. Prior to this, he had a small role in the 1957 Errol Flynn film Istanbul and a pivotal part in the "Comstock Conspiracy" episode of Maverick that same year. He played the title role in the 1961 film Operation Eichmann, opposite his future co-star John Banner.

Klemperer guest-starred in the first Brian Keith television series, Crusader, a Cold War drama that aired on CBS. During this time, he made three guest appearances on Perry Mason: he played East German murder victim Stefan Riker in the 1958 episode "The Case of the Desperate Daughter"; the East European character Ulrik Zenas in the 1963 episode "The Case of the Two-Faced Turn-a-bout"; and Police Inspector Hurt in 1964 in "The Case of a Place Called Midnight". In 1963, Klemperer also portrayed a professor of psychology in "The Dream Book", an episode on the sitcom My Three Sons.[8] He played Lt. Huebner in the 1965 film Ship of Fools, in which he tells Mrs. Mary Treadwell, played by Vivien Leigh, that her life "ends by sitting in a nightclub with a paid escort who tells her the lies she wants to hear."

Prior to Hogan's Heroes, Klemperer appeared in the 1956 episode "Safe Conduct" of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, along with John Banner; twice appeared as Hugo on the syndicated romantic comedy series, How to Marry a Millionaire ( 1957 to 1959 ), with Barbara Eden and Merry Anders; and appeared on the "Purple Gang" episode of The Untouchables.

Hogan's Heroes Era:

Klemperer is best known, however, as Colonel Wilhelm Klink, the bungling, cowardly, conceited, and self-serving Commandant of Stalag 13 on Hogan's Heroes which was broadcast on CBS from 1965 to 1971. Klemperer was conscious that he would be playing the role of a German officer during the Nazi regime, and he accepted the part only on the condition that Klink would be portrayed as a fool who never succeeded.

Klemperer made a cameo appearance in the character of 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. He 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. Klemperer starred in Wake Me When the War Is Over in 1969, playing the role of German Major Erich Mueller, alongside Eva Gabor. He also played a villain in an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea titled "The Blizzard Makers".

For his performance as Klink, Klemperer received five consecutive Emmy Award nominations for best supporting actor, from 1966 to 1970, winning successive awards in 1968 and 1969.

Later Career:

Klemperer as Bassa Selim in Die EntfĂĽhrung aus dem Serail ( The Abduction from the Seraglio ), 1982 After his father's death in 1973, Klemperer returned to Broadway, appearing in The Night of the Tribades in 1977. He expanded his acting career with musical roles in opera, and earned a Best Featured Actor Tony Award nomination. nomination for his performance in Cabaret in its 1987 Broadway revival, playing "Herr Schultz".

A member of the board of directors of the New York Chamber Symphony, Klemperer served as a narrator with many other American symphony orchestras including the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. He also 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. From 1979 to 1982, he appeared as Bassa Selim in 18 performances of Mozart's Singspiel Die EntfĂĽhrung aus dem Serail at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1981, he appeared, to critical and audience raves, as Prince Orlofsky in Seattle Opera's production of Die Fledermaus.

In 1990, he narrated the children's story "Gerald McBoing Boing" ( Music by Gail Kubik ) for a CD of classical music for children. In January 1991 he performed as narrator in the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's concerts and subsequent Koss Classics recording of "Lelio", by Hector Berlioz, in an English translation. In 1992, he made a guest appearance in an episode of Law & Order, "Starstruck", as the father of an attempted murder suspect.

In 1993, 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". According to the episode's DVD commentary, when Klemperer appeared, he had to be given a quick reminder of how to play Colonel Klink. He declined other offers to reprise the character, including one from talk-show host Conan O'Brien.

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.

Klemperer appeared in several episodes of the news / talk show Politically Incorrect.

For many years, 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.

Personal Life:

Klemperer was the father of two children, Mark ( Born 1959 ) and Erika ( Born 1963 ), with his second wife, Susan Dempsay. On the set of Hogan's Heroes he met his third wife, actress Louise Troy, who was making a guest appearance. They married in 1969, and divorced in 1975.

In 1997, Klemperer married his fourth wife, television actress Kim Hamilton, after dating her for 21 years. They remained married until Klemperer's death.

Death:

Klemperer died of cancer at his home in Manhattan on December 6, 2000, at the age of 80. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.