Colonel Klink's dad

The picture is of Otto Klemperer the conductor (orchestra - not trains).  He led an amazing life with ups and downs hard to imagine. His early years were a series of big deal appointments as a conductor and music director in what we think of as the Eastern European area and in pre-WWII Germany. He was born Jewish, joined the Catholic Church and in his later years, went back to Judaism.

He came to America in the 30s and was the music director the LA Philharmonic also having a son, Werner, who you know of Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes.  His "wiki" entry is pretty interesting and for those who think musicians lead hum-drum super duper lives, well his life was so far from it to make your head spin.

Anecdotes about him abound.  He was pedantic and a supreme egotist and if there is some trait that orchestral musicians hate it is some guy up there on the podium talking them to death.  It doesn't fly.  Anyway. Here is Colonel Klink with Hogan and company and I wondered when I saw this clip of what it must have been like - to have a very gifted father/musician - world famous - who slipped from the public view into some sort of bedlam partly of his own making - and pick up an acting job as a pretend colonel in a concentration camp for a zany television series.