Bob Crane's Son Opened up About Dad's Double Life & Unsolved Grisly Murder

Son of "Hogan's Heroes" star Bob Crane, Robert Crane, revealed all about his father’s sex addiction and terrible homicide in his recent book.

The late actor celebrated a glorious career as American hero Colonel Hogan in the hit television series, “Hogan’s Heroes," which ran for 168 episodes. His life came to a tragic end when his body was found lying in a pool of blood in his Scottsdale Arizona apartment in June 1978.

Photo of Bob Crane as Colonel Hogan from the television program "Hogan's Heroes" | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

"The impact on my life of my folks' separation was truly the shattering of a dream."

His son, Robert, published a paperback, titled “Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father’s Unsolved Murder," to reveal some insight into the man behind the charming persona.

Robert opened up some controversial issues regarding his father’s sexual perversions. He wrote that it all began from Bob’s dressing room - which had turned into "porn central."

It had been reported that the star used to seduce women in there, and got physically intimate with the aspiring actresses or models. The book also revealed that his father had grown fond of videotaping such acts.

Photo of Cynthia Lynn and Bob Crane in 1966 | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

"The red light was always on in my dad’s makeshift film processing lab," Robert wrote.

However, in a more shocking confession, Robert had written that his father had exposed him to one of his "sextravaganza" with a woman when he was only 16 years of age.

"She refused to do that on film, but she did just about everything else before my unblinking teenaged eyes," he wrote. "This might have been my dad’s clumsy, Hollywood way of having a 'birds and bees' talk with his coming-of-age son, but what strikes me now looking back is that his equipment-laden room was another in a series of tech-heavy habitats that grew progressively darker."

The book suggested that Bob had grown used to spending his leisure time developing photographs of actresses and Playboy Playmates, and at one point, Hogan’s set had turned into a place for young actresses or aspiring models to market themselves.

Photo of Bob Crane as Colonel Hogan from the television comedy "Hogan's Heroes" | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Robert revealed that his father's unusual way of life went into high gear in 1970 when he separated from his first wife, Anne Terzian.

"The impact on my life of my folks' separation was truly the shattering of a dream," he wrote. "They had always seemed so safe, so certain. Perhaps they had thought so themselves, complacent that they could weather any storm. The family was conservative by nature, politically and in terms of family values."

When the hit TV program, "Hogan's Heroes," ended its run, Bob was expecting to find another television show. He worked in live theatre to pay the bills while waiting for that dream. In June 1978, while on tour for a dinner theater production, Beginner's Luck, Bob was found bludgeoned to death in his apartment in Scottsdale.

Robert suspected the killer was his father’s longtime companion John Henry Carpenter, a roving video equipment salesman for Sony.

Photo of Bob Crane and Sigrid Valdis in 1969 | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

"My dad had told me that Carpenter was becoming "a pain in the a**", and as part of his changes he was going to end his relationship with him. The police figured that Carpenter, who was bisexual, was perhaps in love with my dad and reacted to this information like a spurned lover," he wrote.

Robert continued that "a thin, three-inch smear of blood was collected from the padding near the top of the passenger door of Carpenter's Chrysler Cordoba rental" in the days following the killing. Although Cops named Carpenter, who had been captured yet was free on $98,000 bail, as the prime suspect, they couldn't come up with an intention. The murder remains officially unsolved.

Bob's image transformed from a cultural icon to a controversial figure because of the suspicious nature of his demise and posthumous discoveries about his personal life.

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