Inspector Clouseau’s Kato, Burt Kwok dies at 85

Burt Kwouk, who played martial arts expert Cato in the comic Pink Panther films, has died. He was 85.

Burt Kwouk, who played martial arts expert Cato in the comic Pink Panther films, has died. He was 85.

Burt Kwouk, in London, best known for playing Inspector Clouseau's manservant Cato in the Pink Panther films. (AP)

Kwouk’s agent, Jean Diamond, said in a statement that he “passed peacefully” on Tuesday. She didn’t give a cause of death.

Born in northwest England and raised in Shanghai, Kwouk had his breakthrough film role in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness in 1958, and appeared in the James Bond films Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice.

In 1964, Blake Edwards cast him in A Shot in the Dark, a comedy centered on Peter Sellers’ bumbling Inspector Clouseau. Kwouk appeared in half a dozen more Pink Panther movies as Cato Fong, a manservant whose job was to attack Clouseau when he least expected it.

Diamond said Kwouk’s funeral would be private.

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