Trivia

Had a role in Frankenstein junior (1974) although the scene was deleted and he was not credited in the cast. The scene was the reading of Baron von Frankenstein's will.

He received many honors after returning to Vienna, his homeland. In 1988, he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art; in 1994, he was presented with the Silver Cross of Honor, and; in 2002, he was honored with the Gold Cross of Honor for service to the City of Vienna. He was granted the honorary title of Professor by Minister Scholten in 1996 and honored with the Austrian Cross of Honor, First Class, for Science and Art in 2002.

He will probably be best remembered as the German General Burkhalter in Papa Schultz (1965); who perpetually threatened to send Col. Klink to the eastern front.

Returned to Vienna to live in 1994, started to perform cabaret and appeared in various productions with the Volksoper, one of Vienna's finest opera companies.

He received Vienna's Gold Medal of Honor, one of the city's most distinguished prizes.

Buried at Wiener Zentralfriedhof, Vienna, Wien Stadt, Vienna, Austria. Plot Group 33 G, Number 34.

Was given a real tombstone to rest under in August 2014.

Askin fled Austria to the United States in 1940, after having been beaten and abused by the Nazi SA and SS. His parents were murdered in the Treblinka death camp. He then served in World War II as a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army Air Forces.

While working at Vienna's "ABC" cabaret theater in the 1930s, he frequently directed the works of dissident political writer Jura Soyfer.

After the war, he went to Hollywood to begin a career in films, invariably portraying foreign characters who speak English with a strong accent. Askin appeared as the Russian composer Anton Rubinstein in a Disneyland anthology episode of the life of Peter Tchaikovsky.

From 2002 to 2004, he read Jura Soyfer's "End of the World" '(Weltuntergang) on 25 evenings at the Vienna Schauspielhaus. That same year, the 95-year-old Askin married for a third time.

Askin made guest appearances on The Restless Gun 1957 episode "The Shooting of Jett King", My Favorite Martian and the 1965 episode "Martin Of The Movies" as Von Reinbein.

In the 1920s, he studied acting with Louise Dumont and Max Reinhardt.

Fans of the television series Adventures of Superman recall his portrayals of an eastern European diamond smuggler (Joseph Ferdinand) in the 1953 black-and-white episode "Superman in Exile", and as a South American prime minister in a color episode.

In 1982, he had a brief appearance as a Moscow Anchorman in the film Airplane II: The Sequel.