Robert Clary Obituary

Robert Clary was an American actor of French origin. Clary was born in 1926 in Paris, France, the youngest of 14 children, ten of whom died in the Holocaust.

At the age of twelve, he began a professional singing career on a French radio station and also studied art in Paris.

In 1942, he was deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Ottmuth, in Upper Silesia (now Otmt, Poland) because he was Jewish. On his left forearm, he had the identification “A5714” tattooed. He was later transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Clary sang to an audience of SS soldiers every other Sunday at Buchenwald, accompanied by an accordionist.

On April 11, 1945, Clary was liberated from Buchenwald. Clary was the only survivor among twelve members of his immediate family who were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

When he returned to Paris after WWII, he discovered that three of his thirteen siblings had not been abducted and had survived the Nazi occupation of France.

He is best known for his role as Corporal Louis LeBeau in the television sitcom Hogan’s Heroes (1965 to 1971). He also appeared on Days of Our Lives (1972–87) and The Bold and the Beautiful (1972–87).

Robert Clary died at his Los Angeles home on November 16, 2022, at the age of 96