Sigrid Valdis
From Philosopedia
Sigrid Valdis [Patricia Olson] (21 September 1935 - 14 October 2007)
Valdis was born Patricia Annette Olson in Bakersfield, California. She grew up in Westwood, California, and as a teenager became a model, working as a runway and print model for department stores such as Bullock's.
After graduating from Marymount High School, she moved to Europe, then to New York City, where she studied acting with Stella Adler and continued her modeling career.
From 1958 to 1967, she was married to George Gilbert Ateyeh, and they had a daughter, Melissa Suzanne. Ateyeh died in 1967 from an aneurysm.
She appeared on television series including "Kraft Mystery Theater" and "The Wild Wild West." Her film credits include Two Tickets to Paris, Marriage on the Rocks, Our Man Flint and The Venetian Affair.
Valdis played Hilda, Col. Klink's sexy blond secretary, for five seasons on "Hogan's Heroes," the 1965 - 1971 CBS situation comedy about Allied prisoners in a World War II German POW camp. She and Bob Crane were married on the TV show's set in 1970, and they had a son, Robert "Scotty" Scott, and an adopted daughter, Ana Marie. "Scotty" has been criticized for
Valdis retired from acting after her son's birth in 1971, but she returned to it in 1998 when she joined the cast of his syndicated weekly sketch comedy radio show, "Shaken, Not Stirred," which originated in Seattle. "She was in almost every single weekly episode," her son told reporters. "She played a ton of bit parts," including the recurring role of his mom.
Her husband, Bob Crane, was found bludgeoned to death in a Scottsdale, Arizona, apartment in 1978. Her son, Scotty, a Seattle record producer, said his mother and father had been separated for a few months in 1977 "but had reconciled quite a while before he passed away."
Crane's murder remains unsolved - the actor's life and death were the subject of director Paul Schrader's 2002 movie Auto Focus, starring Greg Kinnear. The film portrayed Crane as a sex addict who videotaped his encounters.
Scotty Crane said his mother was "very against" the movie. "There are a ton of untruths in it." Knowing that the film was going to be made, he said, "was a strain for her, and she was in and out of the hospital quite a few times" for stress-related illnesses before the film came out. About two years after the movie was released, she was diagnosed with lung cancer, he said.
Valdis died of lung cancer at her daughter Ana Sarmiento's home in Anaheim. In addition to her son and daughter from her marriage to Crane, the twice-widowed Valdis is survived by a daughter from her first marriage, Melissa Smith; and five grandchildren.
"One of her last wishes in her will was that the funeral have no press, so we didn't contact the press [when she died], to honor her wishes," Scotty told the Los Angeles Times.
- Crane's and Valdis's Gravestone, Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles
The Cranes were not members of any organized religion.
The gravestone includes a poem, "Wild Wheat," that can be interpreted as appreciating libidinal pleasures and concluding that "Wild Wheat Will Never Die." It is signed Patricia Crane, Valdis's maiden name, and Humanist, a reference to secular humanism. This is followed by the Darwin fish, the evolutionists' symbol.
