Robert Clary was born in Paris in 1926 and like many of his fellow Hogan's Heroes costars, he was personally affected by the war. Clary was interned in Nazi concentration camps as a child.

By the end of 1949, he was a singing star in France, known for his distinctive vocal style and impish grin. He came to the U.S. the next year to promote his English-language recording, "Johnny, Get Your Girl," which he sang on a 1950 telecast of the CBS variety series The Ed Wynn Show. Robert was still learning English at the time, so Wynn's writers created a comedy skit that let him speak primarily in French.

Clary's early work included a successful stint on Broadway in Leonard Stillman's New Faces revues of the 1950s and a starring role in the U.S. national tour of the popular stage revue La Plume De Ma Tante. Also, like many of his Hogan's Heroes comrades, Robert did some time on the game-show circuit as a regular panelist on both the CBS and ABC versions of Pantomime Quiz (1954-57) and a later CBS version renamed Stump the Stars. After he got his most famous role in 1965, Hogan's Heroes' Corporal Louis LeBeau, many of his roles would be based around the war. He appeared in the 1975 all-star theatrical film The Hindenburg, and had a supporting role in the 1982 TV movie Remembrance of Love, about Holocaust survivors who rekindle a past love affair.

Clary's career later took him far away from the reality of war into the whimsical worlds of two soap operas. In the 1970s, he played nightclub owner Pierre Rouland on CBS' The Young and the Restless. In the 1985s he expanded his soap opera resume by adding the recurring role of Robert LeClair on NBC's Days of Our Lives.

Robert Clary is an accomplished painter, singer, and actor. He has released an autobiography entitled From the Holocaust to Hogan's Heroes.. Fans can visit his website at www.robertclary.com