Biography for Werner Klemperer Date of Birth - 22 March 1920, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Date of Death - 6 December 2000, New York City, New York, USA (cancer) Height - 5' 10" (1.78 m) Spouse(s) - Kim Hamilton     (1997 - 6 December 2000) (his death)                    Louise Troy     (28 October 1969 - 1975) (divorced)                    Susan Dempsey     (1959 - 1968) (divorced) 2 children Mini Biography Werner Klemperer, everyone's favorite TV German Air Force colonel, was best known for his role as the bumbling Col. Wilhelm Klink on the comedy series "Hogan's Heroes" (1965). Although he'll forever be known as the blustering but inept German commandant of Stalag 13, Klemperer was in fact a talented dramatic actor, as evidenced by his acclaimed performance as an arrogant, unrepentant Nazi judge being tried for crimes against humanity in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). His identification with Nazi roles notwithstanding, Klemperer was in real life the son of a Jew who fled with his family from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. When he was offered the Col. Klink role, Klemperer only agreed to do it if the show's producers promised that Klink would never succeed in any of his schemes. "Col. Klink" earned Klemperer five Emmy nominations, and he took home the trophy twice, in 1968 and 1969. After the series, Klemperer carved out an impressive musical career as a conductor and also served as a narrator with many major U.S. symphony orchestras. He was an accomplished concert violinist. -- IMDb Mini Biography By: Morgan De Sade (additional info by Susan Cohen)  Trade Mark Klink's cry "Hooo-gaaann!" whenever Col. Hogan foiled him (later "Hooo-meerrr!" as the voice of Homer Simpson's conscience). The Shouting of "SCHUUUUUULTZ", for his Sergeant of the Guard Schultz Trivia Served in the U.S. Army from 1942-1945. He conducted the Buffalo Orchestra. Son of conductor Otto Klemperer. He appeared as Pasha Selim in the Mozart opera "The Abduction From the Seraglio". Klemperer also appeared as a narrator with nearly every major symphony orchestra in the United States. His repertoire included such works as Beethoven's "Egmont" and "Fidelio," Stravinsky's "L'Historie du Soldat" and "Oedipus Rex." One of his favorite works was as narrator in "Peter and the Wolf," which he performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Although he was most famous for playing a colonel in the German Luftwaffe (air corps), Klemperer's family were German Jews who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s. For many years, he served as an elected member of the National Council of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Immersed himself into teaching himself English so completely, that he found himself actually thinking and dreaming in English. Was nominated for Broadway's 1988 Tony Award as Best Actor (Featured Role - Musical) for a revival of "Cabaret." Is portrayed by Kurt Fuller in Auto Focus (2002). His last acting role was as Colonel Klink, his most famous character, on a 1993 episode of "The Simpsons" (1989). During World War II, served in the U.S. Army and was assigned to Maurice Evans' Special Entertainment Unit serving with fellow actor Carl Reiner. Klemperer agreed to take the role of Col. Klink in "Hogan's Heroes" (1965) only on the condition that none of Klink's schemes would ever succeed and that he would always wind up looking foolish. He was nominated for a 1975 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Guest Artist for his performance in "The Great Sebastians," at the Ivanhoe Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. During his guest appearance on "The Pat Sajak Show" (1989) he was presented with a monocle by Pat Sajak, as the host had learned that Werner's original monocle from his "Hogan's Heroes" (1965) days had recently been taken from his personal collection. He made guest appearances on both of the longest running prime time dramas in US television history: "Gunsmoke" (1955) and "Law & Order" (1990). --  Above from the Internet Movie Database  --  Below from other website sources

It was in July of 1985 that Werner Klemperer permitted me to call him on the telephone for an interview.  By that time in my career, I had already spoken with many of the greater and lesser lights of the classical music field, but this was my first encounter with someone who was so familiar to the general public.  I need not have worried, however.  He was a stern taskmaster, and responded to my questions with directness and authority, but he put me at ease immediately and we did have a wonderful conversation.

He was pleased that I wanted to know so much about his own career and interests, especially the parts away from the famous TV series.  A larger accounting of his life and accomplishments can be seen in the obituary which follows at the bottom of this webpage. 

We began with his recollections about his famous father, the well-known and much admired conductor Otto Klemperer . . . . . . . . .


Bruce Duffie:    Let us start with your father.  I assume that you saw him conduct at least some operas and concerts?

Werner Klemperer:    Actually, interestingly enough, my relation to his actual work did not really come strongly until after we came to this country.  When we were children in Europe, we were not allowed to go to anything because we were too little.  The educational process was somewhat more rigid than it is here.  So it wasn’t until I was in my later teens that I began to have a relationship to his music.

BD:    In effect, really, it would almost be better, because you have to wait until that time to understand what’s going on.

WK:    Absolutely.  I had very few experiences when a child, but it all started in Los Angeles, really.  We went regularly to the Philharmonic concerts, so I heard a variety of things.  It’s very hard to express those kinds of reactions, except to say that he had a very profound influence on me as far as musical tastes are concerned, and certainly as far as some interpretations are concerned.  It’s hard to really put it right down to a particular piece or something.  You can’t really do that.

BD:    Did you enjoy his concerts more than those conducted by others?

WK:    That, too, is difficult to answer.  As I grew musically, I began to make choices on my own.  As a matter of fact, I’ve never quite been asked that before.  I can say in that retrospect, not because he’s my father but just as to my interest in music, that he is a most important, very profound musician, and that in a large amount of the cases I prefer his approach to composition.

BD:    Do you find that is still true when you listen to his recordings?

WK:    Yes, I find that there is much in certain composers that I would rather hear him do than anybody that I can think of.

BD:    When you were growing up and he was home [see photo at right], did he talk about his music at all, or when he came home, did he divorce himself from the music, and talk about other things?

WK:    The conversation was not about that, no.

BD:    Did you see him conduct opera, or just concerts?

WK:    I’ve heard him conduct opera, but that was late — that was in the ’60s.

BD:    Did you go with him at all to Budapest?

WK:    I did not hear or go to Budapest because I was very involved as an actor here in America, and I had no opportunity to go there.  I did not hear him conduct the Kroll Opera in Berlin because I was too little.  I do remember a dress rehearsal of Falstaff when I was a child.  I do have a bit of a remembrance of that.  But I heard his Fidelio at Covent Garden in the ’60s, and that made a very profound impression on me.

BD:    Since you saw it on stage and you have the LP, is the recording a good representation of his thoughts on the opera?

WK:    Very much so, in my opinion.

BD:    I just wondered if anything got lost in the vinyl someplace?

WK:    There’s always something that’s lost in a reproduction as opposed to a live performance.  That will never change as long as we have the difference, but that Fidelio is a very outstanding recording, and should be a good guideline for a lot of young conductors.  [Note: my Interview with Walter Berry, who sings Pizarro in that recording, includes some stories about working with Otto Klemperer.] 

BD:    Let me ask you about the narrator in Oedipus Rex of Stravinsky.  Did your father give you any information on that, since he did the world premiere?  [See photo at left]  Were you working on that while he was still alive?

WK:    No, my father died in 1973, and it was just about that time that I just began, very slowly, to do some of that work.  As a matter of fact, it was even a little later than that, so he did not have any participation in that at all.

BD:    Were you able to go through his letters and documents or his score to get help on that?

WK:    No.  No, I did not.

BD:    Did he see you on the stage and on television?

WK:    Yes, he certainly did.

BD:    Did he approve of you as an actor?

WK:    Very much so, yes.

BD:    Rightly or wrongly, you’re going to be most remembered as Colonel Klink in Hogan’s Heroes.  Did he see any of that series?

WK:    Yes, yes, he saw a couple of episodes of that in Switzerland.  He found it very amusing.  That’s about as far as he went.  It wasn’t shown there.  Through CBS I had a couple of episodes sent for him to look at.

BD:    But he was happy at your success in it?

WK:    Oh, I think so, yes.  He was always very interested.  My father was a very theatre-oriented man, and he was interested in everything that was connected with the stage.  So he was obviously very interested in my work.

BD:    When you were first developing as an actor, did he encourage you to continue in that?

WK:    Yes, he did.  I started out at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles.  I went to drama school instead of college.

[Photo taken at the home of Arnold Schoenberg]

BD:    Without naming specific names, are there conductors today who do stir you as much as your father did?

WK:    Oh, boy!  I have been stirred by other conductors, and I’ve had moments when I’ve listened to music of other conductors where I became extremely involved, yes.

BD:    Did you ever hear any of your father’s compositions?

WK:    Yes! 

BD:    What or who were the major influences on his writing?

WK:    I certainly think that if there’s one composer that must have influenced my father’s composition, it was Mahler.

BD:    Oh, of course, yes.  Mahler was a big influence on his life all of the way through.

WK:    Yes.

BD:    Did you ever see his opera?

WK:    No, it was never produced.

BD:    It has still never been produced?

WK:    No.

BD:    Is there any chance that it can be?

WK:    Oh, I have no idea.  No, I don’t think so.

BD:    I just wondered if you could lobby the management of the Met to do it.

WK:    No, no, no.

BD:    Do you think the opera house in general is too much of a museum?

WK:    I’m not a good one to ask because I haven’t seen the work of that many opera houses.  No, I don’t think the opera houses are museums.  Sometimes some of the productions that are done are like museums, yes, but in the main, I think opera houses all over the world

to the chagrin of the engineers.  [Both laugh]  But he did long takes.  He wasn’t one of those people who could take out a note here and a bar there and re-record it and put it in.  He hated all of that.

BD:    So he was giving a performance?

WK:    He believed in the viability of the actual happening.  When they said to him that this note was quite clean or that the horn made a quiet fluff, he said, “Well, why not?  That’s perfectly healthy.  There’s nothing wrong with that.”  He once told me, and I’ll never forget it...  It was those years that there was a discussion about Jascha Heifetz.  He had worked with him in Los Angeles, and he thought he was such a great, just simply outstanding violinist!  [See photo at left]  He said, “There’s only one problem I have with his training.”  I asked him, “What was that?”  And he said, “He never makes a mistake.”

BD:    [Laughs]  You mean he wasn’t human???

WK:    Well, he didn’t say he wasn’t human, but he felt that by being so perfect technically, that it lost something that was real.  If you get so inwardly excited about what you are doing, you are vulnerable to a slip.  But if you are a perfect machine, there are no slips.  Do you understand?

BD:    This seems to be a common complaint today, that many of the new performers are too perfect, and lack the heart that is necessary.

WK:    I won’t say lack the heart; I just say too perfect.  I let the rest of it stay on its own merit.

BD:    Let me ask you about a couple of your roles.  You’ve done Abduction from the Seraglio.  Tell me about the character of Pasha Selim.

WK:    The character is quite obvious.  He’s an autocrat, almost a dictator kind of person because of the way that the governments were run in those days.  He does really love Constanza, and that’s basically it.

BD:    Then why does he let his compassion get in his way, and he loses her?

WK:    That is difficult to answer because he’s an Eastern-oriented individual.

BD:    So in order to really understand him, you kind of have to understand the Eastern philosophy?

WK:    I think so.  The production we had at the Met was a very fascinating one, and it was a terrific experience for me as an actor to not only be in that production, but to be working in that house.

BD:    Was it at all different for you because you were not singing, the Pasha being a speaking part?

WK:    It was different because I’m not singing, but it was like going to school.  The entire time that I was there, I was in that house from morning ‘til night, going to rehearsals and other operas and educating myself.  It was wonderful!

BD:    So it was kind of a crash course in the operatic tradition for you?

WK:    It sure was.  It was marvelous!

BD:    What else did you learn besides just your part?

WK:    I learned how an opera house is run.  I learned how they do these things.  It was fascinating, absolutely fascinating.  I learned how to do a lot of things and how not to do a lot of things.

BD:    [Laughs]  Sometimes that’s more important, how not to do things.  Are these lessons that you can, then, transfer to your acting career also?

WK:    Very much so.  Of course.  There’s a certain tradition that still remains as to the acting behaviors on the opera stage.  If you are a good actor, you have to find a means to break that and still be in the ballpark.  It was very interesting.

BD:    So acting on the opera stage was different from other kinds of acting?

WK:    It is, to some degree.  Luckily we had an English director who was basically a stage director, John Dexter.  That helped a great deal.

BD:    Did you find the house was at all too big, speaking to four thousand people rather than just twelve hundred or so?

WK:    No.  If you have a good vocal instrument, if you can speak well, as any stage actor should, you can be heard anywhere.

BD:    Would it have made any difference to you if it had been performed in English?

WK:    It was in German.  The Metropolitan Opera does virtually every opera in their original language.

BD:    This brings up one of my favorite questions.  Should opera be done in the original, or should it be done in translation?

WK:    Well, my answer is very simple and very quick.  I know it’s open to much discussion, but I think it should be done in the language of where it’s played.

BD:    So then in New York it should be done in English?

WK:    That is my opinion.

BD:    Why are more operas not done in the language of the audience?

WK:    [Sighs]  I think that there are two reasons.  There is one reason that’s given, and there is one reason that’s not given, in my opinion.  The reason that’s given is that when the music was written and the lyrics were written in the original language and they are more singable that way.  That’s one reason.  The reason that’s not given is that the singers don’t know all of the languages.  In other words, the big fight is, experts, or so-called experts say, “If it’s written in Italian it’s only singable in Italian, because when it’s translated it’s too difficult.”  Well, I think you have to make adjustments because it’s more important that the person who walks into the theater understands the words.

BD:    Have you gone to any of these performances where they have the translations running in the proscenium?  [Remember, this interview was done in 1985, just when the use of supertitles was beginning to spread around the world.]

WK:    I am about to do it.  I live directly across and I could almost touch the opera house where it is being done, and we are going over there to see one.  I have not seen it yet, but everybody that I have talked to has said it is just simply wonderful.  I think that’s a great idea!

BD:    Is that the ideal compromise, then?

WK:    I think it’s a hell of a compromise, yes!  If you are going to pay forty or fifty dollars for a seat, don’t you think it’s fair that you understand the story?  Seems to me pretty fair.

BD:    This goes back to my question of how much the performer can expect of the public, and their preparation for an opera.  It’s always been known that you have to do a little more preparation for opera than you need to do for a musical or a straight play, just because of the language.

WK:    But it is my opinion that you should not have to do any preparation for any of those things.  It should be natural, and you should go into that house and understand what’s happening.

BD:    So then you’re saying the performers should do all of the work involved to put it across?

WK:    That has nothing to do with the performer.  That has to do with the guiding spirit who decides which way it’s done.  The performer will do it the way he is told to do it.

BD:    So we go back to management, even.

WK:    Absolutely, to management!

BD:    Then how do we get wrong-headed managements to do more things in translation?

WK:    I don’t know.  I guess the public has to revolt.

BD:    Go on strike, and not come back until they get it done in the vernacular?

WK:    That’s right.  [Both laugh]  That will be an interesting development.

BD:    Are there enough young musicians today to fill the demand?

WK:    There are always young, talented people coming up, and they need help because they often don’t have the financial funds, the ways and means to get ahead.  This is the kind of organization that does that.  We have a national competition for violin and piano and cello.  There is another part of our program called Musical Encounters in which we send our youngsters into the junior high schools and the high schools to work with their peers who are taking regular music classes.  That’s a marvelous program!

BD:    So you feel more should be done at the public schools and at the younger ages?

WK:    Oh, I feel it’s very important.  At home and in the schools — that’s where it all starts.

BD:    Do you feel that opera or concerts belong on the television?

WK:    Yes, I think there is a place for it on television, particularly now that our new sets are going with the stereo sound.  Opera has done a great big giant step through television with some of the performances that we’ve seen, and it’s gotten a lot more people interested.  There again, they had the subtitles, if you remember.

BD:    Is that going to help prepare the people, to see the subtitles then in the house?

WK:    Yes, absolutely.  Also, for instance, The Ring that was done by Chereau on television got people closer to The Ring that never would have come to it otherwise.

BD:    Even though it was a somewhat controversial production?

WK:    I don’t know what you mean by controversial.  It was interesting.  Obviously, it will be controversial if it is interesting, because if the man has something to say, people are going to dislike it.

BD:    You feel that if productions are worthwhile, they will always be controversial?

WK:    If they are worthwhile, the chances are very good that they’ll be controversial, of course, because if they are worthwhile, they have a very definitive point of view.  If you have a definitive point of view, you are going to be in trouble in this world because it is safer to exist in the middle of the road than to exist on either end of it or on either side of it.  I’ve have had two opportunities now to work with a young director named Peter Sellars.  I consider him one of the brilliant new talents.  I did a play by Brecht, called The Visions of Simone Machard, and I did a Gorky play called Summerfolk.  But he had a new title, he called it Hang on to Me.  It was an adaptation, a new translation, and he used Gershwin songs with it.  It was a fascinating production.  I did that at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis with him.  Just last Sunday I went to Purchase, New York, where he did a production of Handel’s Cesare, and it was brilliant!  Musically he did it complete.  For the first time it was really done, the whole score.  It was wonderful!  There is a review of it in the New Yorker magazine by Andrew Porter.

BD:    I’ve gotten that magazine for many years for the cartoons and for the musical reviews at the back.

WK:    You will be interested in reading that.  He’s a good reviewer.

BD:    I like him.  I learn a lot from him.

WK:    Yes, he’s good.

BD:    What’s the role of the critic or the reviewer?

WK:    I think the role of the critic is to criticize and to stimulate.  [Laughs]  He has to have, in my opinion, an incredible background, which is already a failure of most critics, and he has to be a real musician or a real theater man.  He has to have studied the fields thoroughly, and he is to illuminate what took place, whatever he reviews.  He should stir people into interest, whether it is negative or positive, but it should be of interest to them.  He should not be a destroyer, yet he should not be a person who only wants to say good things.  He should be a criticizer.

BD:    I’m afraid that’s one of my failings when I go to the theater.  I always find things I like, or at least I try to find things I like.

WK:    In the main, I try to, just literally, go with as open a mind as I can.  It’s very hard, of course, not to be pre-judging and then seeing what happens.

BD:    Is going with an open mind easier when it is something you have never seen, rather than something you have either seen or done yourself?

WK:    That’s very hard to answer.  I don’t know because we get so used to certain things, and then if it isn’t like that we don’t like it, and that’s very bad.

BD:    I just wondered if you went, perhaps, to Oedipus Rex or Abduction from the Seraglio just as audience.

WK:    I have that problem with music a great deal, only because I expect certain things for myself, and when they are not forthcoming I am disappointed.  But one shouldn’t, really.  One should take it upon its face value.

BD:    Let me ask about another role that you have done, Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus.

WK:    Yes, which is usually sung by a female.

BD:    How did you wind up with the part?

WK:    I don’t know.  [Both laugh]  I think it’s fine that it’s done by a man.  Why not?  The character is a man.  You can play him many ways.  I played him as a sort of a decadent, hedonistic kind of fun-loving poop.

BD:    [Laughs]  Was that your idea, or the director’s idea?

WK:    That was my idea.

BD:    What do you do if you get a director that doesn’t like your ideas?

WK:    Then, I have to try to adhere to much of what he wants.  That’s what I’m hired for.  If you are an actor and your director has a way of going, then if you signed your contract, that’s what your job is.  You can always try compromises and talk about it, but you have to adhere to the director.

BD:    So he is the final boss?

WK:    Well, absolutely!  And should be.

BD:    I have talked to many opera singers, and occasionally you find some who don’t think that way.

WK:    I wouldn’t think that was occasionally; I would think it was more often than that.

BD:    [Laughs]  True, I was being a little more diplomatic.  Of course, in the opera house you have one more boss

BD:    As an actor, how have television and films affected your performance, and theatricality in general?

WK:    Most of us are stage actors.  Everybody you see on television and film

This interview was recorded on the telephone in July, 1985.  Portions (along with recordings) were used on WNIB two months later, and again in 1990, 1995 and 1999.  The transcription was made and posted on this website in 2013.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here.

Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001.  His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.