Today on another episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Robert Crane, son of actor Bob Crane. Sadly, more has been spoken about the unsolved murder and the details surrounding the life of Bob Crane, the star of the hit 1960s television show Hogan’s Heroes than about his actual career. Be it autobiographical movies like Auto Focus starring Greg Kinnear or books like My Unhollywood Family and Crane: Sex, Celebrity and My Father’s Unsolved Murder both written by his son, our guest, the mystery surrounding Bob Crane’s death somehow has eclipsed all else.
Today, we spoke to Robert about not only the devastation of losing his father in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1978 but also spending time with at KNX radio where his dad’s massively popular radio show in the 1960s made him one of the most popular DJs in the country. We discuss what Bob was like as a father (both the good and the bad), the fractured family dynamic of Bob’s first marriage and the fractured relationship with Bob’s second family. We also change gears and discuss Robert’s connection to SCTV via a book with Dave Thomas and his professional relationship as John Candy’s publicist and assistant for more than half a decade.
So yes, on this upcoming episode, we dig into the hard stuff as well as the personal stuff which made Bob Crane a fun loving dad as well as the tough stuff which never quite leaves you, even close to 50 years later. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and this is one interview, you wont forget. Take a listen.
I edited Robert Crane’s amazing book, “My UnHollywood Family,” and after talking with Robert, on many occasions, and the research I’ve done, I am convinced that Patti Olsen/Sigrid Valdis was behind the idea for John Carpenter, (not the Hollywood horror film director) to encourage Carpenter into murdering Bob Crane. It is explained in the book, in detail. What I always remember as the greatest tragedy is that Bob Crane was literally turning his life around. He had just begun therapy with a counselor, to look into his sex addiction and he had cut off a number of hangers-on, including John Carpenter, because he saw how they had influenced him to fail, and that they had used him, and his celebrity. But John Carpenter, a man with a violent past, was not accepting being let go. He was enraged. His own son testified against him later, regarding the 1978 murder of Bob Crane. It is so incredibly sad to me, that when Bob Crane was just making positive, good decisions, to turn his life around, because of jealousy and envy, John Carpenter ruined that. And the other tragedy is that Patti Olsen destroyed any chance Robert Crane, and his two younger sisters could have at a good relationship with their half brother, Scottie. To me, that is very sad. Patti Olsen really was the true villain in this very sad story.