Herbert Lom - 'Pink Panther' Actor Herbert Lom Passes Away Aged 95

Herbert Lom, star of the Pink Panther has died aged 95. If you're of a certain generation you'll be sure to remember the star, who played Inspector Clouseau's boss Charles Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movies. The veteran actor passed away peacefully in his sleep on Thursday (September 27th), according to his family. It was a life well-lived for Lom, who managed to rack up more than 100 movie credits in a career that spanned six decades, including starring roles in classics such as El Cid, The Ladykillers and Spartacus among others.

It wasn't an easy start to life for the Czech-born Lom however, who was forced to move to the UK in 1939 in order to escape the impending Nazi occupation during World War II; upon emarking on an acting career, he found himself regularly cast as a villain in his early roles owing to his European accent. An early role of his was the portrayal of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1942's The Young Mr. Pitt, someone he returned to in the 1956 screen adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. It will be as the irritable Chief Inspector Dreyfus who Lom will be best remembered as however; he made his first appearance opposite Peter Sellers' bumbling Clouseau in the 1964 movie A Shot In The Dark.