Posted on 03/18/2008 7:19:13 PM PDT by lunarbicep
Actor, director and producer Ivan Dixon, best known for his role as Kinchloe in the television series "Hogan's Heroes," has died in Charlotte at the age of 76.
Dixon died Sunday at a Charlotte hospital after suffering a hemorrhage, said Whitney Stauffer of Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles.
Actor Sidney Poitier said the two men became friends after Dixon was his stunt double in the 1958 movie, "The Defiant Ones."
"As an actor, you had to be careful," Poitier said through Stauffer. "He was quite likely to walk off with the scene. And I was very careful."
Dixon began his acting career on Broadway in plays that included "The Cave Dwellers" and "A Raisin in the Sun." On film, he appeared in "Something of Value," "A Raisin in the Sun," "A Patch of Blue," "Nothing But a Man" and the cult favorite, "Car Wash."
But he was probably best known for the role of U.S. Staff Sgt. James Kinchloe on "Hogan's Heroes." Kinchloe, who's in charge of electronic communications, can mimic German officers on the radio or phone.
Dixon earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the CBS Playhouse special, "The Final War of Olly Winter."
In addition to acting on television, he also directed hundreds of episodic shows, including "The Waltons," "The Rockford Files," "Magnum P.I." and "Heat of the Night."
Born April 6, 1931, in New York City, Dixon graduated in 1954 from North Carolina Central University in Durham.
Dixon's awards include four NAACP Image Awards, National Black Theatre Award and the Paul Robeson Pioneer Award from the Black American Cinema Society. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Directors Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild of America, and the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
Survivors include his wife of 53 years, Berlie Dixon; son, Alan Kimara Dixon and daughter, Doris Nomathande Dixon. Two sons, Ivan Nathaniel Dixon IV and N'Gai Christopher Dixon, are deceased.
At Dixon's request, Stauffer said no memorial is planned.
Leon Uris (Gen. Burkhalter) and Howard Caine (Maj. Hochstetter) were Jews, too.
Not unexpected in “show business”, but a delicious irony nonetheless.
“Nothing But a Man” was playing on HDnet a couple weeks ago. Forgotten classic.
Funny how that happens.
I also liked to watch the show as a kid but never around my mom who had been in a concentration camp in Austria. She hated the show. She simply could not stand to see Germans portrayed with any human quality especially humor.
Leni
Robert Clary (LeBeau), Richard Dawson (Newkirk.) I believe Larry Hovis (Carter) died a few years ago.
They come in threes. Someone else we know will be gone in the next couple of days.
Werner was Klink. His father, the conductor, was Otto Klemperer.
The show made a total mockery of all things Nazi. They were hapless dolts, constantly outwitted by their prisoners.
It was also one of my favorite shows.
Brother Serling could write.
Werner Klemperer. His father was a symphony conductor who fled when Hitler started tightening the screws. If I recall correctly “Col. Klink” served in the U.S Army in WW II.
You’re my hero, Thanks.
Every day after school I’d get to watch Gilligan’s Island and Hogan’s Heroes. My old man would come in to do something and watch for a while. When he’d leave he would always chuckle and say “what a crazy show” or “those crazy guys”. Only until I was older did I realize what he, a WWII vet, had going through his head as he watched the show with me.
Carwash..George Carlin..”Have you seen a tall blond black chick?”..My favorite line.
Larry Hovis' thread only got 21 posts. See picture in link.
Search finds Werner Klemperer's thread, but it won't open for me.
-PJ
The actor who played French prisoner, LeBeau, in the sitcom, was reportedly in a concentration camp, and survived. Klink and Schultze (in real life) were Jews, though I think Werner von Kemperer (sp) had only one Jewish parent. He was a conductor, but I forget which orchestra.
It’s like Gorbachev doing a pizza commercial for the Superbowl.
That’s how we know who won the Cold War.
LeBeau, in real life, survived a concentration camp. Buchenwald. See Robert Clary if you don’t believe me. Klink ‘s Werner Kemperer had one Jewish parent, I believe.
33 for us today.
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