Thursday, September 27, 2012

RIP Herbert Lom (1917-2012)

The great character actor Herbert Lom died in London at the age of 95 says THR.

In a career that spanned over five decades he appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows playing everything from the leading men, good guys, and villains alike.

Lom will be best remembered for his role as Chief Inspector Dreyfus, Inspector Clouseau's (Peter Sellers) long-suffering boss, in the The Pink Panther film series--starting with "A Shot in the Dark". The pair had great chemistry and I spent many hours as a young boy watching their antics with my parents and siblings--enjoying their work.


The varied roles in his career included a gangster in the original "The Ladykillers", a pirate in "Spartacus", a psychiatrist in "The Seventh Veil", a harbor master in "Fire Down Below", a doctor in 1979's "The Lady Vanishes", German colonel Bockner in the 1985 version of King Solomon's Mines, and a Muslim leader in "El Cid".

Lom also appeared in a number of horror classics The Phantom of the Opera, Mark of the Devil, Asylum, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Dead Zone.-- And Now the Screaming Starts! He played "Professor Abraham Van Helsing", opposite Christopher Lee in Count Dracula matching wits with the vampire. Lom appeared as one of the ten victims in Ten Little Indians, playing the drunken "Dr. Edward Armstrong"

He also played Captain Nemo in "Mysterious Island" and Napoleon Bonaparte twice in The Young Mr. Pitt" and "War and Peace".

Lom also had time to two historical novels, get married and divorced three times--leaving behind two sons and a daughter. He will be greatly missed, but has left us all a great body of work.

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