Most of the obits will remember Kenneth Mars for two Germanic roles in Mel Brooks movies: Franz Liebkind, the Nazi author of the play in The Producers, and Inspector Kemp in Young Frankenstein. I remember him for those parts and so many others…like the neighbor on He and She, W.D. "Bud" Prize on Fernwood Tonight, the Stockbroker on the PBS production of Steambath and so many others. He was darn good in everything he did.
I guess Franz Liebkind was the role that put him on most folks' maps. He originally auditioned for the role of Roger DeBris, the crossdressing director. This was back when Mel was still figuring he might play the role of Franz himself. The day of the audition, they were running behind and Mars was in the waiting room long enough to read the entire script and to realize he was reading for the wrong role. He asked if he could audition for Franz, they let him…and boy, they couldn't have done better. What a perfect match of actor and part.
Ken did a lot of cartoon voice work so naturally, I had to book him for a Garfield cartoon. The day he came in, he had no idea what the role was. I told him, keeping as straight a face as possible, that I wasn't sure how to cast the part so since I respected him so much, I just decided to gamble that he could handle it. He asked, "What's so special about this part?" I told him, "Well, I'm really hoping you can do a German accent."
For about four seconds, he gave me a shocked look that screamed, "Don't you know who I am?" Then he got that I was kidding and he laughed.
And when he was done laughing, he asked me, "Which German accent? There are hundreds of them." He then proceeded to demonstrate about ten different ones with uncanny ability.
I couldn't choose among them but the part was that of a rocket scientist…so I asked him, "Where was Wernher von Braun from?" He told me and we agreed that would be it. His character had two assistants and as an inside joke, I named them Bialystock and Bloom…but the one line where he said the names was later cut for reasons of time.
He was, of course, absolutely flawless in the role, wringing everything an actor could wring out of every line. He was that way in everything he did. I don't think I ever saw him be bad in anything. Next time you watch The Producers, watch him…and yes, I know it's hard to do when you have Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in the scenes, pulling focus, fighting for your attention. But Ken Mars scored with every single syllable he uttered in that movie and there isn't a false beat in a spoken word or a word of body language. He's a big reason that movie became a cinema classic.