Herbert Lom was born Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchacevich ze Schluderpacheru in Prague in 1917 to a Czech family with aristocratic pedigree but little actual wealth. He studied medicine at university, more at his parent's insistence than any true calling, and his path to a career as a doctor was quashed the moment he set foot inside the dissecting room.
His most famous role was as fed-up and irritable Charles Dreyfus, the
boss of Peter Sellers' bumbling character Inspector Clouseau in the Pink
Panther films