Herbert Lom Dies: 'Pink Panther' Chief Inspector Dreyfus Passes Away at 95

Czech-born actor Herbert Lom, most famous for playing the eye-twitching, outrageous Chief Inspector Dreyfus in the popular "Pink Panther" movies, died in his sleep at his home in London on Thursday. He was 95-years-old.

Lom, whose acting career spanned over 8 decades and included over 100 films, settled in England during WWII. Known for his cultured accent and cunning good looks, Lom took on a number of various  (usually villainous) British roles, including playing King Siam in the 1953 London production of the musical "The King and I."

Lom's film career really kicked off in the late 1950s-1960s - he starred in a number of movies (usually typecast as some sort of "bad guy") including these roles: Napoleon Bonaparte in both Carol Reed's "The Young Mr. Pitt" (1942) and King Vidor's "War and Peace" (1956), vicious gangster Kristo in the thriller "Night and the City" (1950), gangster Louis Harvey in the celebrated dark comedy "The Ladykillers" (1955), Moorish warlord General Yusuf in "El Cid" (1961), Captain Nemo in "Mysterious Island" (1961), and the "Phantom" in "The Phantom of the Opera" (1962).

Lom was thrilled when offered the role of Chief Inspector Dreyfus in the "Pink Panther" films because he believed he was being "badly typecast as the foreign 'villain' in British films."Lom told Australia's Daily Telegraph in 1999, "It needed an American, Blake Edwards, to take me away from endless villainous roles and into the comedy of the 'Pink Panther' films." Edwards cast him as Dreyfus in 1964's Pink Panther movie "A Shot in the Dark." Lom went on to star as Dreyfus in six more "Pink Panther"-themed films.

The comedic chemistry between Lom's Chief Inspector Dreyfus and Peter Seller's incompetent Chief Inspector Clouseau is what really drove the "Pink Panther" films to success.

According to Lom, "I loved playing the part of a blabbering lunatic of a police inspector. I think people like to see the police in such trouble; they enjoy seeing the inspector reduced to an utter, twitching wreck." The infamous (and usually furious) Inspector Dreyfus twitch was all Lom's doing.

Lom went on to star in a number of films throughout the 1980s and 1990s, ending with 1993's "Son of the Pink Panther."

Lom is survived by sons Alec and Nick and daughter Josephine.