Ivan Dixon

Ivan Dixon was an American actor, director and producer who earned a drama degree from North Carolina Central University in 1954 and went on to stage and screen work. He appeared on Broadway in The Cave Dwellers in 1957 and in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun in 1959, and worked as a stunt double for Sidney Poitier on The Defiant Ones in 1958. He starred in Nothing But a Man (1964), the independent drama he said he was proudest of. His best known role was Staff Sergeant James Kinchloe, the translator and communications specialist in the sitcom Hogan's Heroes, which he played from 1965 to 1970. He was nominated for an Emmy for the television movie The Final War of Olly Winter (1967). From 1970 to 1993 he worked mainly as a television director, and he directed the features Trouble Man and The Spook Who Sat by the Door. He also acted in Car Wash (1976).