Herbert Lom, Frustrated Boss of Inspector Clouseau, Dies at 95
Source: NYT
Herbert Lom, left, with Peter Sellers in 1976 on the set of "The Pink Panther Strikes Again."
By DAVID BELCHER
Published: September 27, 2012
Herbert Lom, the handsome and versatile Czech-born actor who could play Napoleon Bonaparte or a witch hunter with equal aplomb but who was perhaps best known as Peter Sellers’s frustrated boss in the “Pink Panther” franchise, died on Thursday. He was 95 and lived in London.
His son Alec confirmed his death, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Lom gained more attention as a reliable character actor than as a suave leading man, although he was both. His deep-set, mesmerizing eyes made him the perfect villain in a series of minor films in the early 1940s, and he went on to excel after World War II and in the 1950s and ’60s in small roles in a variety of genres. In a career of more than five decades he appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows.
He was born Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchacevich ze Schluderpacheru in 1917to upper-class parents in Prague. (Various sources give his date of birth as Jan. 9 and Sept. 11), He became a theater actor and made one movie in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to London in 1939, just before the Nazis invaded (and shedding more than 40 letters from his name along the way). His parents survived and later joined him in London, but his girlfriend died in a concentration camp.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/arts/herbert-lom-frustrated-boss-of-inspector-clouseau-dies-at-95.html
RIP, You gave the world a lot of fun.
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When he went insane and destroyed the UN to force the world to please kill Clouseau for him. The Oktoberfest sequence is the last great set piece of the PP franchise which really peaked with a Shot in the Dark anyway.
He also was a not half bad Phantom of the Opera. At least he did it without singing. 
The Sellers steps on it causing Lom to hang from his finger from the ceiling 
!!!
I have to watch those movies now!
etc.
Who could forget that ending of "Return of the Pink Panther"???
Rest In Peace, Herbert Lom.
Guess I'll have to find that movie on DVD or whatever and watch it again
. . .all over the padded walls.
Great actor and amazing body of work.
I'd like to think he departed the earth this way:
