Ivan Dixon, 76, One of Hogan's Heroes

Ivan Dixon, who died Sunday at 76, played Staff Sergeant Kinchloe in "Hogan's Heroes" and was one of the few black actors to find steady television work in the 1960s.

A veteran New York actor who appeared in the Broadway production of William Saroyan's "The Cave Dwellers" in 1957, Dixon was also in the cast of the original production of "A Raisin in the Sun." After the show opened at Chicago's Blackstone Theatre in 1959, he moved with it for a year-long run on Broadway. Also in the cast were Ruby Dee, Louis Gossett Jr., and Sidney Poitier. The ensemble stayed intact for the 1961 film version of "Raisin."

It was Mr. Poitier who was Dixon's introduction to film, in the 1957 film "Edge of the City," in which Dixon did Mr. Poitier's stunts. "I almost owe everything to Sidney," Dixon told the Los Angles Times in 1967.

Mr. Poitier returned the compliment in a recent interview. "As an actor you had to be careful," he told the Associated Press. "He was quite likely to walk off with the scene."

Dixon went on to star in the 1964 film "Nothing But a Man," a pioneering effort to depict the lives of ordinary black Americans. But he made his mark as a guest on many television shows, including "Have Gun Will Travel," "Perry Mason," "Ironside," and dozens more. In 1965, he was cast in "Hogan's Heroes," making him one of the first blacks ever hired to be a series regular. That his character was the most level-headed and, as communications officer, the most technically proficient of the maudlin crew of stalag internees made it sweeter still. Yet Dixon left in 1970, making him the only regular to depart before the series folded its tent the following year. Dixon also starred in the 1967 CBS Playhouse drama "The Final War of Olly Winter," a Vietnam drama that garnered him an Emmy nomination. Though grateful for the recognition, he told the New York Times that most of his black peers had dropped out from frustration. "You would have to be kind of nuts to stay an actor," he said. "What was the use when there were two roles a year and both of them are played by Sidney Poitier?"

Dixon was raised in Harlem but dropped out of high school and finished up at Lincoln Academy in rural North Carolina. He became a dramatic standout at North Carolina College, where played King Lear as a freshman. He studied drama at Case Western Reserve University on a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship, then moved to New York and broke into theater, television, and movies.

Among his later film credits were "Car Wash" (1976) and "The Spook Who Sat By the Door," a 1973 low-budget comedy/drama about the first black CIA agent who turns rebel: "Their first mistake was letting him in. Their worst mistake was letting him out!"

Switching to directing in the 1970s, Dixon helmed episodes of "The Rockford Files," "Wonder Woman," and "The A-Team," among others.

He moved to Hawaii in the early 1990s and occasionally emerged for film festivals. In 1993, he came to New York's Film Forum for a revival of "Nothing But a Man" and decried the state of black filmmaking.

"Even among black directors today — and I'm not saying these guys haven't done good work — there is more concern with making movies that make money, that titillate, and get people to the box office, you know, immediatement!" He told Newsday: "And I think that is the kind of horror of black American life, that we have accepted that struggle for the dollar instead of struggling for humanity. For honor."

Ivan Dixon

Born April 6, 1931, in Harlem; died March 16 after suffering a hemorrhage at a Charlotte, N.C., hospital. Survived by his wife of 53 years, Berlie Dixon, and a son, Alan Kimara Dixon, and a daughter, Doris Nomathande [CQ] Dixon.