Prolific Actor Kenneth Mars Passes
In addition to roles in dozens of classic television series over more than forty years, esteemed character actor Kenneth Mars appeared in such acclaimed feature films as The Producers, Young Frankenstein and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Kenneth Mars, an actor known for his performance as a German playwright in the original movie version of The Producers, as well as appearances in numerous television series, died February 12, 2011, at his home in Granada Hills, California. He was 75.
According to news reports, the cause was pancreatic cancer.
In The Producers, written and directed by Mel Brooks, Mars played Franz Liebkind, a Nazi enthusiast whose play Springtime for Hitler is the basis for a scheme by two conniving showmen to fleece investors by putting on a Broadway play certain to fail. It was his first feature film.
Brooks also cast Mars in Young Frankenstein as a police inspector with a malfunctioning prosthetic arm.
Mars was born April 4, 1935, in Chicago, and appeared on Broadway in The Affair in 1962. He went on to appear in such television series as Get Smart and Gunsmoke before being cast in The Producers, which was released in 1968. He went on to divide his time between television and features.
Other notable movies included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, What’s Up, Doc? and two Woody Allen films, Radio Days and Shadows and Fog.
His television career spanned more than 40 years and included such series as Car 54, Where Are You?, Mannix, Room 222, That Girl, McMillan & Wife, Ironside, Columbo, Barney Miller, Police Woman, Fernwood Tonight, Barnaby Jones, Murder, She Wrote, The Facts of Life, Magnum, P.I., Malcolm in the Middle, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Hannah Montana.
He also provided voices for numerous cartoon shows, ranging from The Jetsons and The Rugrats, as well as several installments of the Land Before Time series.
He is survived by two daughters, Susannah Mars Johnson and Rebecca Mars Tipton, and six grandchildren.