Actress Sigrid Valdis died of lung cancer on 14 October 2007. Born Patricia Olson on 21 September 1935 in Bakersfield, California, the Swedish actress was best known for playing Colonel Klink's sexy blonde secretary Hilda on Hogan's Heroes.
Her most genre role were her two appearances as Miss Piecemeal on The Wild Wild West in 1965, but she had a variety of stage, film, and television roles to her credit, both as a lead and as a supporting character. She was a model in California, Europe, and New York before becoming an actress.
She married Heroes star Bob Crane in 1970 (it was the second marriage for both), and they had two children before his still-unsolved murder in 1978. Valdis retired from acting in 1971, following the birth of their son, Scotty Crane, who announced her death on Friday. "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 Crane told The Los Angeles Times.
Following her husband's death, she took her family away from California and the entertainment industry, to escape the media glare. She returned to acting 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 said. "She played a ton of bit parts."
In addition to her son and daughter from her marriage to Crane, Valdis is survived by a daughter from her first marriage, Melissa Smith; and five grandchildren.
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