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Oct. 18REAL PERSON ''Hogan's Heroes''' Bob Crane
PLAYED BY Greg Kinnear
THE DISH On TV, Crane played a prankster P.O.W. whose idea of naughty behavior was swiping Colonel Klink's monocle. But behind the scenes, the actor favored a XXX-rated lifestyle. Joining forces with video technician John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), Crane videotaped his own kinky sexploits with hundreds of women, a hobby that destroyed two marriages and a successful career. The party came to an abrupt end when Crane was bludgeoned to death with a camera tripod in an Arizona hotel room in 1978.
THE REALITY Although in the film Crane (speaking from beyond the grave) fingers Carpenter for his murder, a jury wasn't convinced. Carpenter was acquitted of the crime in 1994. And the suggestion that Crane had a penile implant doesn't add up: The necessary silicone devices weren't widely available until 1982, four years after Crane's death.
WHAT YOU WON'T SEE Crane wasn't shy about showing his homemade porn to his young son. ''I have been seeing these images since I could crawl,'' Scotty states on his website, BobCrane.com. ''For me it's almost like looking at baseball cards.''
WHAT MAKES THE CUT Despite the limitations of an R rating, director Paul Schrader gets almost as down and dirty as Crane himself. Re-creating the star's home movies, the filmmaker shows graphic sex scenes and plenty of female nudity. Squeamish filmgoers beware: Crane's murder is depicted in grim detail too.
