Bob Crane
Template:Short description Template:For multi Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person
Robert Edward Crane<ref name="BC's little me's">Crane, Robert (2015). Crane : Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder. Lexington, Kentucky : University Press of Kentucky. p. 100. Template:ISBN.</ref> (July 13, 1928 – June 29, 1978) was an American actor, drummer, radio personality and disc jockey known for starring in the CBS sitcom Hogan's Heroes.
Crane was a drummer from age 11,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> and began his entertainment career as a radio personality, beginning in Hornell, New York and later in Connecticut. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he hosted the number-one rated morning radio show. In the early 1960s, Crane moved into acting, eventually landing the lead role of Colonel Robert Hogan in Hogan's Heroes. The series aired from 1965 to 1971, and Crane received two Emmy Award nominations.
Crane's career declined after Hogan's Heroes. He became frustrated with the few roles that he was being offered and began performing in dinner theater. In 1975 he returned to television with the NBC series The Bob Crane Show, but the series received poor ratings and was cancelled after thirteen weeks. Afterward, Crane returned to performing in dinner theater and also appeared in occasional guest spots on television.
Crane was found bludgeoned to death in his Scottsdale, Arizona, apartment while on tour in June 1978 for a dinner theater production of Beginner's Luck. In the 1990s his friend John Henry Carpenter was tried for the murder but was acquitted, and the case remains officially unsolved. Crane's previously uncontroversial public image suffered due to the suspicious nature of his death and posthumous revelations about his personal life.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Early life
[edit]Bob Crane was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, the younger of two sons to Rose Mary (née Ksenich) and Alfred Thomas Crane—the original spelling of the family name was Crean.<ref>Hind Posz, Darcie. "Robert E. Crane of Hogan's Heroes and his Hogan and Crean Ancestors of Waterbury and Stamford." Connecticut Ancestry, Vol. 64, no. 1 (August 2021): 31-40.</ref> Crane spent his childhood and teenaged years in Stamford.<ref name="Altamont">Altamont Enterprise and Albany County Post, Friday, February 13, 1970, p. 1, "Glittering Stars to Appear on Telethon," [1] Template:Webarchive; A&E "Bob Crane Biography" [2];TV Radio Mirror, October 1967, pp. 33, 76–79.; Stamford High School; Stamford Historical Society, Stamford CT.</ref>
Crane began playing drums at the age of 11, and by junior high was organizing local drum and bugle parades with his neighborhood friends.<ref name=Altamont/> He joined his high school's orchestra and its marching and jazz bands.<ref name=Altamont/><ref>TV Star Parade, January 1966, "The Unlikeliest Hero of Them All," pp. 8, 70–71; Stamford High School, Stamford, CT.</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Crane also played for the Connecticut and Norwalk Symphony Orchestras as part of their youth orchestra program.<ref>TV Radio Mirror, October 1967, pp. 33, 76–79; Bridgeport Symphony Orchestra, formerly Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, Bridgeport CT; Stamford High School, Class of 1946 Alumni.</ref> He graduated from Stamford High School in 1946.<ref name=Altamont/> Two years later, he enlisted for two years in the Connecticut Army National Guard and was honorably discharged in 1950.<ref>Newark Advocate, July 24, 1965, "Crane Gambles $150,000," p. 7; Stamford National Guard records, Stamford CT.</ref> The previous year, he married his high-school sweetheart, Anne Terzian. The couple had three children: Robert David, Deborah Anne, and Karen Leslie.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Career
[edit]Early career
[edit]
In 1950, Crane began his career in radio broadcasting at WLEA in Hornell, New York. He soon moved to Connecticut stations WLAD in Danbury, WBIS in Bristol and then WICC in Bridgeport, a 1,000-watt operation with a signal covering the northeastern portion of the New York metropolitan area. In 1956, Crane was hired by CBS Radio to host the morning show at its West Coast flagship KNX in Los Angeles, partly to re-energize that station's ratings and partly to halt his erosion of suburban ratings at WCBS in New York City. In Los Angeles, Crane filled the broadcast with sly wit, drumming and such guests as Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. His show quickly topped the morning ratings with adult listeners, and he became "king of the Los Angeles airwaves."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Crane's acting ambitions led to guest-hosting for Johnny Carson on the daytime game show Who Do You Trust? and appearances on The Twilight Zone (uncredited), Channing, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and General Electric Theater. After Carl Reiner appeared on his radio show, Crane persuaded Reiner to book him for a guest appearance on The Dick Van Dyke Show.
The Donna Reed Show (1963–1964)
[edit]After seeing Crane's performance on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Donna Reed offered him a guest shot on her program, ABC's The Donna Reed Show. After the success of that episode, Crane's character, Dr. David Kelsey, was incorporated into the show's storyline, and Crane became a regular cast member, beginning with the episode "Friends and Neighbors." Crane continued to work full-time at KNX during his stint on The Donna Reed Show, running back and forth from the KNX studio at Columbia Square to Columbia Studios. He left the show in December 1964.<ref name=":0" />
Hogan's Heroes (1965–1971)
[edit]In 1965, Crane was offered the starring role in a CBS television sitcom set in a World War II POW camp. Hogan's Heroes involved the sabotage and espionage missions of Allied soldiers, led by Colonel Robert Hogan, from under the noses of the oblivious Germans guarding them. The show was an immediate ratings hit, finishing in the top ten in its first year. The series lasted for six seasons on CBS, and Crane was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1966 and 1967.
After having a love affair with Hogan co-star Cynthia Lynn,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> the actress who played Helga, Crane became romantically involved in 1968 with Lynn's replacement Patricia Olson, who played Hilda under the stage name Sigrid Valdis. Crane divorced Terzian in 1970, just before their 21st anniversary, and married Olson on the set of the show later that year, with series co-star Richard Dawson serving as best man.<ref name="people">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="milwaukee">Template:Cite news</ref> The couple's son, Robert Scott "Scotty" Crane, was born in 1971,<ref name="BC's little me's"/> and they later adopted a daughter, Ana Marie.
Crane's son Robert David later alleged that Crane was not the biological father of any of Olson's children. When they were married in 1970, Olson was already pregnant, but Crane had had a vasectomy in 1968 while he was still married to Terzian.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Crane and Olson separated in 1977,<ref name=milwaukee/> and were mere weeks away from finalizing their divorce at the time of Crane's death in June 1978.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>
After Hogan's Heroes
[edit]In 1968, Crane and Hogan co-stars Werner Klemperer, Leon Askin and John Banner appeared with Elke Sommer in a feature film, The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz, set in the divided city of Berlin during the Cold War. In 1969, Crane starred with Abby Dalton in a dinner theater production of Cactus Flower.
Following the cancellation of Hogan's Heroes in 1971, Crane appeared in two Disney films: Superdad (1973), in the title role, and a small role in Gus (1976). In 1973, Crane purchased the rights to a comedy play called Beginner's Luck and began touring it, as its star and director, at the Showboat Dinner Theatre in St. Petersburg, Florida; the La Mirada Civic Theatre in California; the Windmill Dinner Theatre in Scottsdale, Arizona; and other dinner theaters around the country.<ref>Noe, Denise: [3] Template:Webarchive TruTV Crime Library, The Bob Crane Case.</ref>
Between theater engagements, Crane guest-starred in a number of television shows, including Police Woman, Gibbsville, Quincy, M.E. and The Love Boat. In 1975, he returned to television with his own series, The Bob Crane Show on NBC, which was cancelled after fourteen episodes.
In early 1978, Crane taped a travel documentary in Hawaii and recorded an appearance on the Canadian afternoon cooking show Celebrity Cooks; neither aired in the U.S. His appearance on Celebrity Cooks was broadcast on CBC Television five times beginning in 1978, and was dramatized in the biopic film Auto Focus.<ref name=":0" /> Claims that Crane had been distraught during the taping and had made inappropriate jokes about death and sex have been denied by the show's producers and production staff, who have stated that taping would have stopped or the episode cancelled if anything inappropriate had been said.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Private life and murder
[edit]Crane frequently videotaped and photographed his own sexual escapades.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> During the run of Hogan, Dawson introduced Crane to John Henry Carpenter, a regional sales manager for Sony Electronics who often helped famous clients with their video equipment.<ref>Template:Harv</ref> The two men struck up a friendship and began visiting bars and nightclubs together. Crane attracted many women due to his celebrity status, and he introduced Carpenter to them as his manager. The two men videotaped their joint sexual encounters.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Crane's son Scotty later insisted that all of the women were aware of the videotaping and consented to it, but several claimed that they had no idea that they had been recorded until they were informed by Scottsdale police after Crane's murder.<ref name="sfweekly">Template:Cite web</ref> During their friendship, Carpenter became national sales manager at the consumer electronics company Akai and arranged his business trips to coincide with Crane's touring schedule, allowing the two to continue videotaping their sexual encounters.<ref>Template:Harv</ref>
In June 1978, Crane was living in the Winfield Place Apartments in Scottsdale during a run of Beginner's Luck at the Windmill Dinner Theatre. On the afternoon of June 29, his co-star Victoria Ann Berry entered his apartment after he failed to show up for a lunch meeting, and discovered his body.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Crane had been bludgeoned to death with a weapon that was never identified, though investigators believed it to be a camera tripod. An electrical cord had been tied around his neck.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Crane's funeral was held on July 5, 1978 at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westwood, Los Angeles. An estimated 200 family members and friends attended, including John Astin, Astin's wife Patty Duke and Carroll O'Connor. Pallbearers included Hogan producer Edward Feldman, co-stars Robert Clary and Larry Hovis, and Crane's son Scotty. He was interred in Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Olson later had his remains relocated to Westwood Village Memorial Park in Westwood, and she was buried beside him in 2007 under her stage name of Sigrid Valdis.<ref>Bob Crane Biography. biography.com Template:Webarchive, retrieved November 3, 2015.</ref>
Investigation
[edit]Scottsdale police had no homicide division in 1978, so it was ill-equipped to handle such a high-profile murder investigation. The crime scene yielded few clues; no evidence was found of forced entry, and nothing of value was missing. Detectives examined Crane's extensive videotape collection, which led them to Carpenter, who had flown to Phoenix on June 25 to spend a few days with Crane. Carpenter's rental car was impounded and searched. Several blood smears were found that matched Crane's blood type; no one else of that blood type was known to have been in the car, including Carpenter. DNA testing was not yet available, and the Maricopa County District Attorney declined to file charges.<ref name=two/>
In 1990, Scottsdale police investigator Barry Vassall and Maricopa County Attorney's Office investigator Jim Raines<ref name="three" /> re-examined the evidence from 1978 and persuaded the county attorney to reopen the case.<ref name="bulletin">Template:Cite news</ref> DNA testing was inconclusive on the blood found in Carpenter's rental car, but Raines did discover an evidence photograph of the car's interior that appeared to show a piece of brain tissue. The actual tissue samples recovered from the car had been lost, but an Arizona judge ruled that the new evidence was admissible.<ref name=bulletin/> In June 1992, Carpenter was arrested and charged with Crane's murder.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Trial
[edit]At the 1994 trial, Crane's son Scotty testified that Crane had repeatedly expressed a desire to terminate his friendship with Carpenter in the weeks before his death. He said that Carpenter had become "a hanger-on" and "a nuisance to the point of being obnoxious."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> "My dad expressed that he just didn't need Carpenter kind of hanging around him anymore," he said.<ref name=two/> Scotty further testified that Crane had called Carpenter the night before the murder to end their friendship.<ref name="philbin">Philbin, Tom (2012). The Killer Book of Cold Cases: Incredible Stories, Facts, and Trivia from the Most Baffling True Crime Cases of All Time. Sourcebooks, Inc. Template:ISBN p. 191</ref>
Carpenter's attorneys attacked the prosecution's case as circumstantial and inconclusive. They presented evidence that Carpenter and Crane were still on good terms, including witnesses from the restaurant where the two men had dined the evening before the murder. They noted that the murder weapon had never been identified or found; the prosecution's camera tripod theory was sheer speculation, they said, based solely on Carpenter's occupation. They disputed the claim that the newly discovered evidence photo showed brain tissue, and alleged that the police work had been sloppy, such as the mishandling and misplacing of evidence—including the crucial tissue sample itself.<ref name="three">Rubin, P. (May 5, 1993). The Bob Crane Murder Case, Part Three. Phoenix New Times archive, retrieved November 4, 2015.</ref> They pointed out that Crane had been videotaped and photographed in sexual relations with numerous women, implying that any one of them might have been the killer.<ref name=philbin/> Other potential suspects proposed by Carpenter's attorneys included angry husbands and boyfriends of the women, and an actor who had sworn vengeance after a violent argument with Crane in Texas several months earlier.<ref name="two">Rubin, P. (April 28, 1993). The Bob Crane Murder Case, Part Two. Phoenix New Times archive, retrieved November 3, 2015.</ref>
Carpenter was acquitted,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and he continued to maintain his innocence until his death in 1998.<ref name="Newton">Newton, Michael (2009). The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes (2nd ed.). Infobase Publishing. Template:ISBN</ref>
After the trial, Crane's son Robert David speculated publicly that Patricia Olson might have had a role in instigating the crime. "Nobody got a dime out of [the murder]," he said, "except for one person," alluding to Crane's will, which left his entire estate to Olson while excluding him, his siblings and his mother. Robert David repeated his suspicions in the 2015 book Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder.<ref>Crane R, Fryer C. Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder. University Press of Kentucky (2015), pp. 200–209. Template:ISBN</ref> Maricopa County District Attorney Rick Romley responded, "We never characterized Patty as a suspect," adding, "I am convinced John Carpenter murdered Bob Crane."<ref name=people/> Officially, Crane's murder remains unsolved.<ref name=Newton/>
Later DNA testing
[edit]In November 2016, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office permitted Phoenix television reporter John Hook to submit the 1978 blood samples from Carpenter's rental car for retesting, using a more advanced DNA technique than the one used in 1990.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Two sequences were identified, one from an unknown male, and the other too degraded to reach a conclusion.
This testing consumed all of the remaining DNA from the rental car, making further tests impossible. Hook's investigation turned up two blood vials, samples from Crane and Carpenter, located in evidence storage at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. Carpenter voluntarily gave a sample to Scottsdale Police when he was questioned in 1978. Crane's blood vial was recovered during his autopsy the day after the murder. Both were used as comparison samples for Hook's DNA tests on the blood stains found in Carpenter's rental car.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Auto Focus
[edit]Crane's life and murder were the subject of the 2002 feature film Auto Focus directed by Paul Schrader and starring Greg Kinnear as Crane. The film is based on the book The Murder of Bob Crane by author Robert Graysmith and was described as "brilliant" by critic Roger Ebert. It portrays Crane as a happily married, church-going family man who succumbs to Hollywood's celebrity lifestyle after becoming a television star. He meets Carpenter, played by Willem Dafoe, and learns about then-new home video technology. He subsequently descends into a life of strip clubs, BDSM and sex addiction.<ref>Ebert, R. (September 2, 2002). "Auto Focus" Captures Star's Downfall. RogerEbert.com archive. Retrieved November 15, 2013.</ref>
Scotty challenged the film's accuracy in an October 2002 review. "During the last twelve years of his life," he wrote, "[Crane] went to church three times: when I was baptized, when his father died, and when he was buried." Scotty further stated that Crane was a sex addict long before he became a celebrity, and that he may have begun recording his sexual encounters as early as 1956. There was no evidence, he said, that Crane engaged in BDSM; there were no such scenes in any of his hundreds of home movies, and Schrader admitted that the film's BDSM scene was based on his own experience while writing his earlier film Hardcore (1979).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Before production on Auto Focus was announced, Scotty and Olson had tried to sell a rival script titled F-Stop or Take Off Your Clothes and Smile, but interest ceased after Auto Focus was announced.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In June 2001, Scotty launched the Template:Abbr website,<ref name=sfweekly/> which remained active as late as May 2017.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It included a paid section featuring photographs, outtakes from his father's sex films and Crane's autopsy report that proved, he said, that his father did not have a penile implant as stated in Auto Focus.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Explicit photographs and videos from Crane's private archive could also be purchased for a monthly subscription fee of $19.95.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The site was renamed "Bob Crane: The Official Web Site", but is now abandoned. An "Official Licensing Website of Bob Crane" was maintained by CMG Worldwide elsewhere on the internet—it was active as late as February 2023,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but the website is now defunct.
Filmography
[edit]Film
[edit]| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Return to Peyton Place | Peter White | Uncredited |
| 1961 | Man-Trap | Ralph Turner | |
| 1964 | The New Interns | Drunken prankster at baby shower | Uncredited |
| 1968 | The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz | Bill Mason | |
| 1972 | Patriotism | Narrator | Short film |
| 1973 | Superdad | Charlie McCready | |
| 1976 | Gus | Pepper | Final film role |
Television
[edit]| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1953 | General Electric Theater | Template:Citation needed | Episode: "Ride the River" |
| 1959 | Picture Window | Jerry McEvoy | Unaired pilot |
| 1961 | The Twilight Zone | Disc Jockey | Episode: "Static", uncredited |
| 1961 | General Electric Theater | Harry | Episode: "The $200 Parlay" |
| 1962 | The Dick Van Dyke Show | Harry Rogers | Episode: "Somebody Has to Play Cleopatra" |
| 1963 | The Alfred Hitchcock Hour | Charlie Lessing | Season 1 Episode 15: "The Thirty-First of February" |
| 1963 | Channing | Prof. Arlen | Episode: "A Hall Full of Strangers" |
| Template:Nowrap | The Donna Reed Show | Dr. Dave Kelsey | 62 episodes |
| 1965–1971 | Hogan's Heroes | Col. Robert E. Hogan | 168 episodes |
| 1966 | The Lucy Show | Himself | Episode: "Lucy and Bob Crane" |
| 1966 | Password | Himself | Game show contestant / celebrity guest star |
| 1967 | The Green Hornet | Uncredited (non-speaking role) |
Episode: "Corpse of the Year, Part 1" |
| 1967 | The Red Skelton Show | Col. Hogan | Episode: "Freddie's Heroes" |
| 1969 | Arsenic and Old Lace | Mortimer Brewster | Television film |
| 1969 | Love, American Style | Howard Melville | Episode: "Love and the Modern Wife" |
| 1971 | Love, American Style | Mark | Episode: "Love and the Logical Explanation" |
| 1971 | Love, American Style | Template:Citation needed | Episode: "Love and the Waitress" |
| 1971 | The Doris Day Show | Bob Carter | Episode: "And Here's... Doris" |
| 1971 | Night Gallery | Ellis Travers | Episode: "House – with Ghost" |
| 1972 | The Delphi Bureau | Charlie Taggart | Television pilot |
| 1974 | Tenafly | Sid Pierce | Episode: "Man Running" |
| 1974 | Tattletales | Himself | Game show contestant / celebrity guest star |
| 1974 | Police Woman | Larry Brooks | Episode: "Requiem for Bored Wives' |
| 1975 | The Bob Crane Show | Bob Wilcox | 14 episodes |
| 1976 | Joe Forrester | Alban | Episode: "The Invaders" |
| 1976 | Ellery Queen | Jerry Crabtree | Episode: "The Adventure of the Hardhearted Huckster" |
| 1976 | Spencer's Pilots | Cozens | Episode: "The Search" |
| 1976 | Gibbsville | Lawyer | Episode: "Trapped" |
| 1977 | Quincy, M.E. | Dr. Jamison | Episode: "Has Anybody Here Seen Quincy?" |
| 1977 | The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries | Danny Day | Episode: "A Haunting We Will Go" |
| 1978 | The Love Boat | Edward "Teddy" Anderson | Episode: "Too Hot to Handle/Family Reunion/Cinderella Story" (final US television appearance) |
| 1978 | Celebrity Cooks | Himself | Episode: "Chicken A La Hogan`s Heroes". Guest on daytime cooking show, aired nationally in Canada on CBC Television (final television appearance) |
Awards and honors
[edit]| Year | Award | Category | Title of work | Nominated/Won |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | Primetime Emmy Award | Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series | Hogan's Heroes | Template:Nominated<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
| 1967 | Primetime Emmy Award | Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series | Hogan's Heroes | Template:Nominated<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
References
[edit]Notes Template:Reflist
Further reading
- Template:Cite web
- Template:Cite book
- Hook, John. "Who Killed Bob Crane? The Final Close-Up". Brisance Books Group (2016). Template:ISBN
- Crane, Robert and Fryer, Christopher. Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder. University Press of Kentucky (2015). Template:ISBN
- Crime and Investigation Network. "Murder in Scottsdale : The Death of Bob Crane". Video. Published May 30, 2014.
- Ford, Carol M., Young, Dee, and Groundwater, Linda. Bob Crane: The Definitive Biography. AuthorMike Ink (2015). Template:ISBN
- Fox 10 Phoenix (KSAZ-TV). Who killed Bob Crane? A closer look at evidence in the 1978 murder investigation. Videos. Published November 14, 2016.
- Graysmith, Robert. The Murder of Bob Crane: Who Killed the Star of Hogan's Heroes?. Crown Publishers, New York (1993). Template:ISBN
- Scott, A.O. "The Bob Crane Story: Everything but a Hero". The New York Times, October 4, 2002
External links
[edit]- Pages with broken file links
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- 1978 deaths
- People murdered in 1978
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- Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
- Deaths by beating in the United States
- Male actors from Waterbury, Connecticut
- People murdered in Arizona
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- Unsolved murders in the United States
- 20th-century American musicians
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