Broadway Banner appeared on
Broadway three times: in a musical revue called
From Vienna, which ran for two months in 1939; and in two comic plays,
Pastoral, in which he had a leading role, but which had a very brief run in November 1939; and
The Big Two, which ran briefly in January 1947. Early on, before he became fluent in English, Banner had to learn his lines phonetically.
From the 1950s Banner made more than 70 television appearances between 1950 and 1970, including the
Lone Ranger (episode "Damsels In Distress", 1950),
Sky King (premiere episode "Operation Urgent", 1952),
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle ("The Renegades", 1955),
Adventures of Superman ("The Man Who Made Dreams Come True", 1957),
Father Knows Best ("Brief Holiday", 1957),
Mister Ed (episode "Ed the Artist", 1965),
Thriller (episode "Portrait Without a Face", 1961),
The Untouchables ("Takeover", 1962),
My Sister Eileen,
The Lucy Show,
Perry Mason,
The Partridge Family,
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea ("Hot Line", 1964),
Alias Smith and Jones,
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ("The Neptune Affair", 1964), and
Hazel ("The Investor", 1965). In the late 1950s, a still-slim Banner portrayed
Peter Tchaikovsky's supervisor on a
Disneyland anthology series about the composer's life. This followed a scene with fellow ''Hogan's Heroes
actor Leon Askin (General Burkhalter) as Nikolai Rubinstein. In 1953, he had a bit part in the Kirk Douglas feature film The Juggler'' as the witness of an attack on an Israeli policeman by a disturbed concentration camp survivor. In 1954, he had a regular role playing Bovarro in the children's
science-fiction TV series
Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Two years later, he played a train conductor in the episode "Safe Conduct" of
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, appearing with future co-star
Werner Klemperer, (Colonel Klink in ''Hogan's Heroes
), who played a spy. He also played Nazi villains in several later films - the German town mayor in The Young Lions (1958), Rudolf Höss in Operation Eichmann
(1961, opposite Werner Klemperer as Adolf Eichmann), and Gregor Strasser in Hitler (1962). The year before the premiere of Hogan's Heroes
, Banner portrayed a World War II German "home guard" soldier in 36 Hours (1964), starring James Garner. Although it was a serious role in a war drama, Banner still displayed some of the affable nature that became his defining character trait the following year in Hogan's Heroes
. By coincidence, during the final moments of 36 Hours'', John Banner's character meets up with a border guard played by
Sig Ruman, who had portrayed another prisoner-of-war camp chief guard named Sergeant Schulz in the 1953 film
Stalag 17, starring
William Holden.
''Hogan's Heroes'' The comedy series ''Hogan's Heroes'', in which Banner played Sergeant Hans Schultz, the role for which he is most often remembered, debuted on the
CBS Television Network in 1965. According to Banner, before he met and married his French wife Christine Gemenne on June 19, 1965, he weighed ; he claimed her good cooking was responsible for his weight gain to , which helped him land the part. The character of Schultz is a bumbling, but ultimately lovable, German guard at a World War II prisoner-of-war camp. The camp is used by the prisoners as a secret staging area for sabotage and intelligence gathering. To obtain nuggets of information from the commandant's office, the prisoners often bribe Schultz with food and candy. Schultz's main goal is to avoid any trouble with his superiors, which often leads him to ignore the clandestine activities of the prisoners. (On those occasions, he often used his
catchphrase "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!" As the series went on, this became simply "I know nothing.
Nothing!") The genesis of the line could be from Banner’s appearance on the TV crime drama
The Untouchables, in the episode "The Takeover" (1961), when confronted by a gangster, he nervously responds with his future classic line. Another signature phrase used was "Jolly joker!", when one of the POWs would make a joke at his expense. Schultz's gentle nature is exemplified by his occupation before the war: he was owner of Germany's largest toy company. Banner was loved not only by the viewers, but also by the cast, as recalled by cast members during the ''Hogan's Heroes
DVD commentary. The Jewish Banner defended his character, telling TV Guide'' in 1967, "Schultz is not a Nazi. I see Schultz as the representative of some kind of goodness in any generation." Banner appeared in every episode of the series, which ran for six years. In 1968, during the series' run, Banner co-starred with fellow ''Hogan's Heroes
actors Werner Klemperer, Leon Askin, and Bob Crane in the Cold War comedy The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz'', starring
Elke Sommer in the title role.
After ''Hogan's Heroes'' After ''Hogan's Heroes
was cancelled in 1971, Banner starred as the inept gangster Uncle Latzi in a short-lived television situation comedy, The Chicago Teddy Bears. His last acting appearance was in the March 17, 1972, episode of The Partridge Family''. He then retired to France with his Paris-born second wife. ==Death==