Howard Caine(1926-1993)
- Actor
At the age of 13 Howard Caine (family name Cohen) moved with his family
from his hometown of Nashville, TN, to New York City, where he began
studying acting. Learning to erase his Southern accent, he went on to
became a master of 32 foreign and American dialects. After service in
the Navy during WWII, Caine continued his studies at The School of
Drama, Columbia University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He was
featured on Broadway in "Wonderful Town", "Inherit the Wind" "Lunatics
and Lovers" and "Tiger at the Gates". He replaced
Ray Walston as "Mr. Applegate", the star of
Broadway's "Damn Yankees". He was featured in such films as
From the Terrace (1960),
Pay or Die! (1960),
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961),
The Man from the Diners' Club (1963),
Pressure Point (1962) and
Alvarez Kelly (1966). He co-starred
with Godfrey Cambridge and
Estelle Parsons in
Watermelon Man (1970) and played
Lewis Morris of New York in 1776 (1972). He
was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. He
acted in over 750 live and filmed TV shows, but is perhaps best
remembered as Gestapo Maj. Hochstetter on the classic
Hogan's Heroes (1965), a role
he played for the series' entire six-year run. He was featured as
Everett Scovill, a thinly disguised portrait of
Charles Manson's attorney Irving Kanarek,
on the CBS two-part TV Movie of the Week
Helter Skelter (1976).
He had always been fascinated with the Appalachian five-string banjo,
and began mastering it in the mid-'60s. Since the summer of 1970 until
his untimely death in 1993, he had taken trophies at 29 prominent banjo
and fiddle contests in the Southland for both Best Traditional Banjo
and Traditional Singing. He was also a popular folk singer and appeared
at a number of prominent folk clubs and folk festivals.
