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I know what you're thinking: this is Saturday morning at Borepatch. There's supposed to be country music. So VAT IS DIS MAN DOINK HEEYH???!??
It turns out that it's a long way from Nashville to Stalag 13, but that was the journey that Howard Caine took. Born Howard Cohen in Nashville his family moved to New York when he was 13. Working to lose his southern accent, he realized that he could pick up other accents and dialects (he ended being able to do over 30). He took up acting and after serving in the Navy in World War II he began a successful Broadway career.
He broke into film, most notably Judgement At Nuremberg. But he is best known as Gestapo Major Hochstetter on Hogan's Heroes. What I had never known is that he had always loved Bluegrass and worked at playing it, to the point that by the time he was on Hogan's Heroes he was quite good. In the 1970s and 1980s he would go to Bluegrass festivals and contests, bringing back 29 trophies. Here thanks to the magic of Al Gore's most excellent Information Superhighway is one of the old greats.
And let us not forget his turn as Lewis Morris of NY in 1776, forever "abstaining courteously".
ReplyDeleteI missed that Caine was in 1776. He's a good picker. Hogan's Heroes is still a favorite.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I thought he would have been funnier if he did Morris as Major Hochstedder, yelling at John Dickinson "Who is zis man?!?!?", but clearly, saner heads than mine prevailed at the production meetings.
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