Bob Crane’s Son Opens Up About the Star’s Tragic Death, Hidden Life and What Made Him a Great Dad (EXCLUSIVE)

To millions of television viewers in the 1960s, Bob Crane was the very definition of effortless charm. As Colonel Hogan on Hogan’s Heroes, he could outsmart the Nazis with a smirk and a wink, a man who always seemed in control of his world. He was the guy every man wanted to be—cool, quick‑witted, and unflappable—and the man audiences trusted to bring a laugh into their living rooms.

But the man behind that familiar grin was far more complex. He was magnetic, generous and playful—a born entertainer—but also restless, private and, at times, quietly troubled. His life was a series of joyous peaks and painful valleys, a journey that ended with a shocking, still‑unsolved 1978 murder that would cast a shadow over his legacy.

“My dad was a great guy… with an asterisk,” says his son, Robert Crane, author of Crane: Sex, Celebrity and My Father’s Unsolved Murder. “He lived a rollercoaster life. A lot of great stuff and then things you never prepare for. But he always said: celebrate the good if you can every day. And keep laughing.”

The public knows Bob Crane for the laughter, while Robert remembers the “rhythm.”

A boy with a beat

Bob Crane was born on July 13, 1928, in Waterbury, Connecticut. Long before TV sets flickered in suburban living rooms, before tabloid headlines and police photos, he was a boy who found joy in rhythm.

“He started playing the drums when he was just a little kid,” Robert recalls. “That was his first love. He always kept a drum set around. Even when we lived in Tarzana, he’d go into the garage and just start drumming. He was always drumming.”

That percussive energy, instinctive timing and the need to fill silence with sound would follow him throughout his life. It would shape his career in radio, infuse his on‑air persona with an almost musical sense of pace and eventually find its way into a darker rhythm in his private life.

As a teen and young man, Bob nurtured that passion for performance. After serving in the National Guard, he gravitated to the world of broadcasting, where timing and personality mattered as much as any script. In the early 1950s, he landed a job as a radio announcer and before long was hosting his own shows in Connecticut. The microphone became his first stage.

By the time he made his way to Los Angeles, Bob Crane was ready for more than spinning records. He wanted to create a show that was alive, unscripted and uniquely his.

The King of KNX

His big break came at KNX‑CBS, where The Bob Crane Show became a local phenomenon. This was no ordinary morning program. While Bob had the smooth voice and easy charisma of a classic announcer, he treated the studio like a playground.

“Radio was where he really found his voice,” Robert says. “He was live every day, doing interviews, cracking jokes and connecting with people. He loved it. That was his element.”

The KNX studio had a constant hum of energy, from the clatter of typewriters from the newsroom down the hall to the soft static of the monitors, and Bob’s spontaneous bursts of percussion echoing off the walls. He could pivot from a quip with a visiting movie star to a drum flourish that sent the control room laughing.

Hollywood began to take notice. Celebrities passing through Los Angeles wanted to sit with Bob Crane—this was a personality who made guests feel like co‑conspirators in a shared joke. The show gave him a taste of the spotlight, and he wanted more.

“Even then, he was ambitious,” Robert recalls. “He wasn’t content to just be a DJ forever. He wanted to act and be part of Hollywood.”

A home in Tarzana

By the early 1960s, Bob Crane’s voice was a morning staple in Los Angeles, and his home life reflected the image of a rising TV‑era success story. He and his wife, Anne Terzian, settled in Tarzana with their three children—a neighborhood far from the Hollywood Hills glamour that many of his peers chased.

“TV Guide once described our house as ‘unfashionable Tarzana,’” Robert says with a laugh. “And that was true. We didn’t have the trappings of fame. It was a regular house in a regular neighborhood. Dad wasn’t into pretending to be a Hollywood star.”

Inside that “unfashionable” home, Bob Crane was a hands‑on dad who brought his sense of play home. Robert remembers family games, laughter and his father’s infectious energy. He was present, fun and engaged.

Yet, even in these early, seemingly idyllic years, there were currents that hinted at the complexities to come. Bob’s love of cameras and photography was already taking root. A darkroom appeared in the family home—a creative hobby that would later gain a far more complicated dimension.

For now, though, life in Tarzana felt like a sitcom in the making: a family man with a thriving radio career, a sense of humor that drew people in and a hunger for the next big stage. Hollywood was listening.

From radio star to TV sensation

Bob Crane’s leap from radio to television seemed almost effortless, at least to outsiders. In 1963, he landed his first acting role on The Donna Reed Show as Dr. Dave Kelsey, the affable neighbor with a broad smile and fast timing.

“He really loved The Donna Reed Show,” Robert Crane recalls. “It was a well‑run, very stable place. It gave him a steady gig and let him show off his comedic side.”

On the set, Bob’s humor and charm made him an instant fit. The series was a model of mid‑century American wholesomeness: white picket fences, friendly neighbors, and lighthearted family problems that resolved neatly in 30 minutes. For Bob, it was the perfect launchpad into television.

Off camera, life mirrored that image. He returned to the Tarzana home where his three children and wife Anne anchored the family. Even as he rubbed elbows with Hollywood, he seemed to keep one foot in regular life.

“He was there for us,” Robert says. “He was a big kid who loved to have fun. We had—well, not softball, but a baseball league… in the pool. He loved games like that. And he’d take me to Dodger games, where I’d be watching the action and he’d be reading Variety. ‘Dad, come on!’”

Bob Crane’s personality seemed to carry him forward with irresistible momentum. He had the look, the timing and the kind of warmth that cameras love. By 1965, he was ready for a starring role, though he didn’t know the offer would be one of the strangest in network history.

Laughing at Nazis

When CBS approached Crane about a new sitcom, the pitch defied belief: a comedy set in a German prisoner‑of‑war camp during World War II.

“After Donna Reed, my dad gets this pitch,” Robert says. “He tells his agent, ‘No, I want to do a comedy.’ And the agent says, ‘This is a comedy.’ Only in the ’60s could that get greenlit.”

The concept sounded like satire with a potentially offensive twist: Allied POWs secretly running sabotage missions under the noses of bumbling Nazis. Audiences could have rejected it outright, but the casting—especially Crane’s performance—made it work.

In September 1965, Hogan’s Heroes premiered, and Crane’s portrayal of Colonel Robert Hogan was instantly magnetic. He was quick, sly and in total control. His was a leader who could charm information out of his captors and crack a joke while doing it. “He was born to play Colonel Hogan,” Robert says. “When I see those clips today, I can’t imagine anyone else in the role.”

The ensemble cast became part of the magic: Werner Klemperer as the perpetually flustered Colonel Klink, John Banner as the lovable Sergeant Schultz (“I know nothing!”) and Richard Dawson, Ivan Dixon, Larry Hovis, Robert Clary and, in the last season, Kenneth Washington, each bringing distinct energy to the group

The chemistry was undeniable. Off‑camera, the cast bonded over shared humor and the novelty of the premise. On‑camera, they delivered a tone that was just broad enough to invite laughs without trivializing the war.

Robert remembers the public’s initial confusion. “A lot of people thought it was set in a concentration camp,” he says. “No, no, no. It was a prisoner‑of‑war camp—big difference. These were Allied soldiers, and in the world of the show, they were secretly running a spy ring right under the Nazis’ noses.”

Audiences embraced it, and for six seasons, Hogan’s Heroes made Bob Crane a household name.

The public star and private Dad

Fame arrived quickly, but Bob approached it with the same affable energy he brought to everything. Fans lined up for autographs, whether at personal appearances or even at the family’s favorite restaurant, Du‑Par’s.

“It kind of drove us crazy as kids,” Robert admits. “My mom, my sisters and I would be sitting there waiting while he signed napkins and menus. But he always said yes. He loved that connection with fans.”

At home, Bob was present and playful, but there were things unspoken—currents Robert only recognized later. At age nine, he wandered into his father’s darkroom and discovered photos of unclothed women he didn’t recognize.

“I didn’t ask either parent about it,” Robert says. “I was too embarrassed. I just put them back and thought, ‘Okay…’ That was the pattern. We didn’t talk about uncomfortable things.”

The family dynamic, Robert explains, was one of quiet avoidance. Joyful and warm on the surface, but with emotional topics sealed away. Even years later, after Bob’s murder, the family struggled to process grief openly.

“Some families would light candles or hold hands and process everything,” Robert reflects. “We didn’t. And that was rough. It’s like you’re emotionally constipated. My sisters and I still are, to a degree. We talk now, which helps, but back then we just… didn’t.”

That silence would echo through the coming years as Bob Crane’s private interests and public image began to drift toward collision.

Searching for a second act

When Hogan’s Heroes wrapped in 1971, Bob Crane expected that his television stardom would carry him into a second act. He’d headlined a hit series, he had name recognition and he had the natural charisma of a leading man. Surely Hollywood would call.

The calls did come—but the roles weren’t what he envisioned. He made guest appearances on shows like The Doris Day Show, Love, American Style, Night Gallery and Quincy, but nothing offered the stability or prominence of a series regular role.

In 1975, Bob was given another shot at the spotlight with a project that began as a single‑camera MTM (Mary Tyler Moore) comedy titled Second Start. By the time it reached the air, it had been retooled into a multi‑camera sitcom filmed in front of a live audience and retitled The Bob Crane Show. The premise was promising: a middle‑aged man who leaves his comfortable life to attend medical school, chasing a new sense of purpose. On paper, it had potential. On television, it was outmatched.

“It just didn’t work,” Robert Crane admits. “The idea was okay, but the execution didn’t have the spark. And it didn’t come from the same people behind The Mary Tyler Moore Show or The Bob Newhart Show, which was part of the problem. Dad loved hearing that audience laughter, but the show only lasted 13 episodes.”

The real killer was its time slot. The Bob Crane Show premiered opposite The Waltons, which was then one of the most dominant programs on television, so there was little chance for the new series to gain traction. After less than a season, the show disappeared from the schedule, leaving Bob in a kind of career limbo.

Dinner theater and an addiction to applause

If Hollywood wasn’t offering consistent work, Bob would make his own. Like many TV actors of the 1970s who struggled to find a post‑hit rhythm, he turned to dinner theater.

“He actually ended up doing a lot of it,” Robert explains. “He took plays that were light and comedic and rewrote them to suit his style. The main one was called Beginner’s Luck, about a cheating husband—which was a little on the nose, honestly—but he made it work. Four characters, easy to tour and he directed it himself. It became something he could do consistently.”

Dinner theater wasn’t glamorous. It meant traveling from city to city, staying in temporary apartments, and performing in front of diners and casual theatergoers instead of network cameras. But for Bob, it offered something he craved more than prestige: instant gratification.

Robert connects this need to a kind of addiction. “Part of my dad post‑Hogan’s—not a large part, but a part—was being on the road doing plays,” he says. “Live, immediate laughter every night. For an hour and a half, hour forty‑five minutes, he gets live laughter. It feeds his ego, and he gets off the stage until the next performance. That’s another addiction besides sex: the instant gratification. ‘They love me.’

“Even though Hogan’s did well—six seasons, and it’s still on somewhere today—as you know, on a set you’re in front of the crew,” he continues. “There’s no live audience. Maybe you’ll get a chuckle from the director, but that’s it. Doing a play gave him that energy again.”

A private hobby turns into a shadow life 

While Bob’s stage work kept him visible, his private life was evolving in ways that would eventually define his public legacy.

He had always been fascinated by cameras. It started innocently enough with Polaroid photos, home movies and the previously-mentioned darkroom in the family home. “He was like a big kid with a new toy,” Robert recalls. “At first, it was family stuff and band practice. Then it turned into something else.”

As home video technology emerged—early Sony reel‑to‑reel decks and bulky cameras that looked like they belonged on a Hollywood set—Bob dove in. He was among the first in his circle to own the equipment, and he marveled at the ability to record and watch playback instantly.

A garage band performance with Robert and friends became an event: “We played a couple of tunes, he taped us, and then we watched it back. It was like, ‘Wow, we’re on Hullabaloo! This is incredible.’”

But the same technology that delighted the family became part of Bob’s secret world. He began recording intimate encounters with women he met, often while on the road. By all accounts, the encounters were consensual.

“It was all a big, fun game,” Robert says. “No drugs, no coercion, none of those horror stories. Everybody who wanted to be there wanted to be there.”

The material was meant to stay private—a personal cache. But after Bob’s death, his second wife and her son released some of the footage and stills to the public.

“I went, ‘What?’” Robert says. “It was horrible. Suddenly, my dad wasn’t Colonel Hogan anymore… he was a scandal.”

Even before his murder, the hobby had professional consequences. Bob appeared in two family‑friendly Disney films in the 1970s—Superdad and Gus—and seemed poised to become a Dean Jones‑style leading man for the studio. But that door quietly closed after word spread that he had been showing risqué Polaroids on set.

“He blew it,” sighs Robert. “I don’t think he even realized the consequences. He was like a big kid having fun and not thinking it through.”

Scottsdale, murder and the long aftermath

By the summer of 1978, Bob Crane’s life had settled into a precarious rhythm. He was in Scottsdale, Arizona, performing Beginner’s Luck in the dinner theater circuit. His second marriage was collapsing, his career was a patchwork of stage work and the occasional TV guest shot, and he was quietly telling friends and family that he wanted to make a change.

“He was optimistic,” Robert Crane recalls. “He said he was going to get a new place in L.A., get divorced and start fresh. He wanted to make changes. He was ready to cut ties with the people and things that were dragging him down.”

Among those ties was John Carpenter—not the filmmaker, but a video equipment salesman and friend who had become a regular presence in Bob’s social life. The two had bonded over their mutual fascination with emerging home‑video technology and often went out to clubs together, taping their encounters with women. But by 1978, Bob was losing patience.

“My dad told me Carpenter had become a pain,” Robert says. “He said, ‘This isn’t fun anymore. I need to make changes.’ It was supposed to be a clean break.”

Bob was 49 years old, still a man with boyish energy and the belief that a new chapter was possible. Instead, his story ended in violence.

On the morning of June 29, 1978, Bob Crane was found bludgeoned to death in his Scottsdale apartment. He was discovered in bed, the victim of a brutal and intimate attack. There were no signs of forced entry.

The suspected murder weapon—a camera tripod—was found at the scene. To investigators, it was a chillingly symbolic choice: the very tool of Bob’s private hobby used to end his life.

“The Scottsdale police just weren’t prepared for something like this,” Robert says. “They had maybe two murders a year in 1978, and now here’s a so‑called celebrity murdered in their town. They weren’t equipped for it. This wasn’t L.A. or New York.”

News of the murder shocked the country. Colonel Hogan, the smiling TV hero, was gone—and in the days that followed, the first whispers of Bob Crane’s private life began to leak out.

Robert was 27 years old. He flew to Phoenix immediately. “I volunteered to go,” he says quietly. “There had been rumors he was shot. None of it made sense. You always think these things happen to someone else—some other family. Then suddenly, it’s yours. It’s your reality.”

Before strict crime‑scene protocols became standard, Robert was allowed to walk through his father’s apartment, touching items, taking in the surreal scene. The next morning, he identified the body at the morgue. “It was the worst time of my life up to that point,” he says.

Cold case

The investigation quickly focused on John Carpenter. He had the access, the knowledge of Bob’s routines, and, according to police, the possible motive of jealousy or rejection.

“Carpenter was a video guy,” Robert explains. “He knew the gear. If you were in someone’s place and looking for a blunt object and you’re a video tech, a tripod makes sense. That’s why the cops focused on him. It wasn’t just random.”

Yet the Scottsdale police were in over their heads. Evidence was mishandled, the crime scene was compromised and no murder weapon was definitively tied to Carpenter.

For 15 years, the case drifted in and out of public consciousness. Bob Crane’s name appeared occasionally in tabloids, always linked to speculation and scandal rather than the work that had once made him a star.

In 1994, a third district attorney in Scottsdale reviewed the file and decided it was now or never. Evidence was deteriorating, witnesses were aging and the window for justice was closing. Carpenter was finally brought to trial, over 15 years after the murder.

“The trial lasted about six weeks,” Robert recalls. “I testified for a day. The main thing I offered was that quote from my dad—that Carpenter was a pain and he was planning to cut him off and move on.”

The jury wasn’t convinced. With no physical evidence definitively linking Carpenter to the crime, he was acquitted. Four years later, he died of a heart attack. For many, with his death went the last realistic chance of closure. “Closure is a word I hate,” Robert says. “We never really got it.”

Scandal and the weight of legacy

If the murder itself wasn’t enough, the years that followed brought a second, more insidious blow to the Crane family: the public airing of Bob’s private life.

Once the tapes and photographs became known, Bob Crane’s image shifted in the public imagination. “For a long time, people only knew my dad as Colonel Hogan,” Robert says. “Or maybe the radio guy if they were old enough to remember. But suddenly, he became tabloid fodder. This other version of him started showing up in headlines—and that’s when things got messy.”

The family struggled under that weight. Robert processed his grief by writing, pouring his emotions onto the page as a way to release the pain. His sisters internalized theirs—one angry, one sad, both caught in the long shadow of their father’s dual life. Their mother, despite the betrayal and the public shame, never spoke ill of Bob.

“She still loves him,” Robert says. “Never a bad word. After everything that happened—she was basically unceremoniously dumped by him—she still can’t say anything bad about him. That’s just who she is.”

Robert did write another book about all of this, My UnHollywood Family, in which he discusses his feelings about his siblings, mother and, of course, his father. He also points to the book’s cover (above) as being extremely symbolic.

“We were doing a photo shoot for some TV magazine,” he reflects. “My dad wanted to do it, but the four of us didn’t want to. You could see that my sisters are totally stiff, I’m closing my eyes and can’t see, my mom looks very Mormon—but she’s not Mormon—and my dad is just doing his thing.”

A life with an asterik

Today, decades after his father’s murder, Robert Crane reflects with a mixture of love, humor, and hard‑earned perspective.

“He was born to play Colonel Hogan,” Robert says. “Nobody else could’ve done it the way he did. And his radio work? Just as groundbreaking. He was a pioneer in the way he did live, unscripted radio. That stuff is still impressive today.”

When asked how he would summarize his father’s legacy, Robert pauses.

“Good family man… with an asterisk. Because yeah, the idea of ‘family man’ and the way he lived, it doesn’t fully match. But in the ways that mattered to us as his kids? He was there. He took us places, laughed with us, made time for us. He was a great dad. A complicated man, but a great dad.”