Born in New York City 10 February 1930. He was the son of German-American doctor Fredrick Gruber (1883-1960) and his wife Maria (1886-1961). Franz attended the Columbia University and graduated in 1949. After getting a job as a journalist for The New York Times, Franz traveled to Japan to wrote about Japanese culture and religion. In 1957, he starting his filming career and played the foreign character in many japanese kaiju films. His acting career lasted from 1963 to 1974. Returning to the USA, he became a teacher at Brooklyn College Academy until he retired in 1989.
