Bob Crane

Bob Crane was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, the younger of two sons, and was known in school as a class clown with an intense love of music, particularly jazz and big‑band styles; his specialty instrument was the drums. After graduating from Stamford High School in 1946 he pursued music, joining the Connecticut Symphony Orchestra as a drummer for about a year before being dismissed for not being “serious enough.” In 1949 he married his high school sweetheart Ann Terzian, and they had three children—Robert David Crane, Debbie, and Karen. The family moved to California in 1956, where Crane began a lengthy radio career at KNX, becoming known as the “King of the Airwaves” in Los Angeles; his program was highly rated and featured interviews with Hollywood figures such as Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Marvin Gaye, Mary Tyler Moore, and Bob Hope. While working in radio he sought an acting career, making guest appearances on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) and The Twilight Zone (1959), and appearing in the 1961 films Return to Peyton Place and Man‑Trap; in 1963 he was cast as Dr. Dave Kelsey on The Donna Reed Show but was released after two years because his character was deemed “too suggestive.” In 1965 Crane obtained the starring role of Colonel Robert Hogan in CBS’s sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, a comedy set in a Nazi POW camp that entered the top ten during the 1965‑66 season; he received Emmy nominations in 1966 and 1967. During this period he met actress Patti Olson (Sigrid Valdis), who played Hilda on the series, divorced Ann after twenty years of marriage, and married Olson on the Hogan’s Heroes set in 1970; they had a son, Scott Crane, in 1971, the same year CBS cancelled Hogan’s Heroes after six seasons. After the show ended Crane continued acting with limited roles, starring in Disney films Superdad (1973) and Gus (1976), guest‑starring on Police Woman (1974), Ellery Queen (1975), and The Love Boat (1977), and briefly hosting The Bob Crane Show for three months in 1975 before NBC cancelled it. In 1973 he acquired the rights to the play Beginner’s Luck, directing and starring in a touring production that visited California, Texas, Hawaii, Arizona, and other states; in June 1978 he took the play to Scottsdale, Arizona, where on the early morning of June 29, 1978 he was beaten and strangled with an electrical cord in his rented apartment, dying at age 49. His murder remains unsolved.