LONDON (Reuters) - Czech-born film star Herbert Lom, best known as the deranged Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the "Pink Panther" comedies, has died, according to British media.
He portrayed Napoleon Bonaparte twice, including in "War and Peace" in 1956 alongside Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn, and the King of Siam in the first London production of the stage musical "The King and I" in 1953.
Two years later he collaborated with Peter Sellers in the dark comedy "The Ladykillers", and they would work together again in the 1960s and 1970s on the Pink Panther series.
In them Lom played the increasingly crazed Dreyfus alongside Seller's hapless Inspector Clouseau, and the success of his character owed much to Lom's own improvisations.
He also wrote two novels, "Enter A Spy" published in 1971 and "Dr Guillotine" in 1993.
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Never really understood the popularity of the Pink Panther films.