Bob Edward Crane

Background

Robert Edward Crane was born on July 13, 1928 in Waterbury, Connecticut, United States. He was the son of Alfred T. Crane and Rosemary Senich.

Education

Graduation from high school in Waterbury completed his formal education.

Career

From an early age Crane aspired to go into show business. Although he was to attain television fame, he set out to be a drummer. He started by playing with the Connecticut Symphony from 1944 to 1946. Afterward, he played on both coasts with traveling dance bands. Meanwhile, he completed a hitch in the Connecticut National Guard from 1948 to 1950.

Despite a promising start to his drumming career, Crane's interests in his late teens turned toward radio. In 1950 he began realizing his new dream by beating out forty applicants for an announcer position at WLEA in Hornell, New York.

A year later, Crane sent a recording of his voice to WBIS in Bristol, Connecticut, which hired him as an announcer. After several weeks on his new job, his manager asked why his on-air voice sounded different from his recording. It turned out that the station had played his recording at the wrong speed, lowering his voice an octave. Crane regarded this accident as one in a long string of lucky breaks that shaped his career.

Later in 1951, Crane moved to WICC in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where his ratings and salary began to climb. Other offers came in, including one from Boston, but he stayed in Bridgeport for five years, hoping for an offer from New York City or Los Angeles. His break finally came in 1956 when Ralph Story left a high-rated morning talk show on Los Angeles's KNX. Crane replaced him. His initial ratings were so poor that he went on the "banquet circuit, " making 256 public appearances in one year to build his name recognition. New listeners discovered his humor, and his ratings shot up.

By the end of the decade his was southern California's highest-rated radio show. Crane meanwhile began acting at little theaters and making contacts with show-business celebrities through his radio show. These contacts led to his getting small parts on television. His first was on a February 1960 episode of "The Lucy Show. " He also provided the off-camera voice of a radio announcer on a "Twilight Zone" episode broadcast in March 1961. Later that year, he appeared on "General Electric Theater. "

He was on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in 1962, and on "The Donna Reed Show" twice in 1963. During this period, Crane also had small parts in two feature films, Return to Peyton Place and Mantrap (both 1963). As the new season began in September 1964, Crane's role as neighbor Dr. Dave Kelsey on "The Donna Reed Show" became permanent. While working on this series, Crane continued his daily radio program until he got his own television series.

In 1965 he became the star of "Hogan's Heroes, " playing an Army Air corps colonel, Robert Hogan. Many critics and viewers regarded this sitcom about Allied officers in a German prison camp during World War II as vulgar buffoonery, but it was an immediate hit, ending the year as television's ninth-ranked show. The series ran from September 17, 1965, through July 4, 1971, raising Crane himself to national stardom.

Success on television allowed Crane to retire from radio permanently, but he kept himself busy throughout the series's six-year run with other work. He made guest appearances on "The Lucy Show" in February 1966, "Love American Style" in October 1969 and February 1971, and other shows, and he occasionally guest-hosted Johnny Carson's and Merv Griffin's talk shows.

In 1967 he appeared in the film The Wicked Dreams of Paula Shultz; and in 1969 he starred with Lillian Gish and Helen Hayes in a television production of the play Arsenic and Old Lace.

After "Hogan's Heroes" ended in 1971, Crane made more guest appearances on such television shows as "The Doris Day Show, " "Night Gallery, " "Police Woman, " and others. He appeared in the films Superdad in 1972 and Gus in 1976.

In 1977 he appeared on television only once, in an April episode of "The Hardy Boys/ Nancy Drew Mysteries. " His last television work was the January 7, 1978, episode of "The Love Boat. "

Through these years, Crane turned more to theater. He appeared in stage productions of Cactus Flower and Send Me No Flowers, and toured dinner clubs with Beginner's Luck.

While appearing in this latter production in Scottsdale, Arizona, Crane met his unlucky end. On June 29, 1978, he was found beaten to death in his bed in an apartment rented by the dinner theater. Although there was considerable speculation about possibly unsavory elements of Crane's personal life, no clear motive was established for his murder and no arrests were made. The case remained a mystery until mid-1992, when a man who had been a suspect since the time of Crane's murder was finally arrested.

Achievements

• Crane received Emmy Award nominations as best comedy-series actor. In March 1975 his career reached a high-water mark with a new television series bearing his own name, "The Bob Crane Show. "

Works

More photos

• book

  • Hogan's Heroes: The Complete Series

    (Hilarity finds a home in the most unlikely of places -- a...)

Connections

On May 20, 1949, he married Anne Terzian, whom he had known from childhood; they had three children. In June 1970, Crane divorced his first wife, and on October 16 of that year, he married Patricia Olsen, who played Hilda on "Hogan's Heroes" under her stage name, Sigrid Valdis; they had one child (she already had a child from a previous marriage).

Father:

Alfred T. Crane

Mother:

Rosemary Senich

Spouse:

Patricia Olsen

Spouse:

Anne Terzian

References

• Who Killed Bob Crane?: The Final Close-Up
• Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder (Screen Classics)
• Bob Crane : Hollywood's Unsolved Murder
• Bob Crane: The Definitive Biography