Character actor Kenneth Mars died of pancreatic cancer, in Grenada Hills, CA on February 12. He was 75.
Starting out on Broadway, Mars moved into both TV and movies. He appeared in numerous 70’s TV series, such as “Get Smart”, “ Gunsmoke”, “McMillan and Wife”, “Murder She Wrote” and “Columbo”.
He also appeared in over 40 movies, playing odd characters or supplying cartoon voices. His best known role was probably in Mel Brooks’ 1968 movie “The Producers”. Mars played Franz Liebkind, a Nazi enthusiast whose play “Springtime for Hitler” is the basis for a scheme by two conniving showmen (Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder) to bilk investors by putting on a sure-fire Broadway flop.
Brooks also cast Mars in “Young Frankenstein” (1974) as take-ff of a police inspector (“Inspector Kemp”) with a malfunctioning artificial arm who is on the trail of the monster created by a descendant of the original Dr. Frankenstein. He also can be spotted playing a marshal tracking the title characters in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.
As an interesting sidelight, the part of Franz Liebkind was slated for Dustin Hoffman, but Brooks allowed him to audition for"The Graduate" (which would star Brooks' wife, Anne Bancroft), thinking he would be rejected.
