Veteran Czech-born actor Herbert Lom, known best for his roles in the Pink Panther films, died on Thursday aged 95, his family said.
Lom, who appeared in more than 100 films, often played villains and was most famous for his role as the irritable police chief Charles Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movies, starring opposite Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.
In a career spanning six decades, Lom also played in classics including Spartacus, El Cid and The Ladykillers.
Relatives said the London-based actor, who was born in Prague in 1917, died peacefully in his sleep.
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Fungi collected by Darwin found in Cambridge
London: Fungi and seaweed collected by Charles Darwin on his Beagle Voyage 180-years-ago has been discovered, wrapped in newspaper in a Cambridge University library. The astonishing find was made when curators at the Sainsbury laboratory examined an unmarked cardboard box in the collection.
“I was going through a box labelled in 1950 ‘to be sorted’. Inside it, wrapped in a newspaper from 1828, I found fungi and seaweed collected by Charles Darwin on the Beagle Voyage in South America during 1832 and 1833,” said chief technician Christine Bartram. “And in a brown paper bag, I discovered plant specimens collected by CG Seligmann, doctor on the 1898 Cambridge Anthropological Expedi-tion to the Torres Strait Islands,” Bartram was quoted as saying. — pti