Pink Panther’s karate-chopping manservant Cato was just one of the many faces of actor Burt Kwouk

ACTING roles were often limited for actors with Chinese heritage but Burt Kwouk (left) was one of the few that became a star.

Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau and Burt Kwouk as Cato in a scene from the Pink Panther.

FROM the moment he burst onto the screen as Cato, the manservant of Inspector Jacques Clouseau in the Pink Panther film series, Burt Kwouk became a genuine star.

In the British film and TV industry from the ’50s to the ’80s choices for Asian actors were limited to stereotypes of “inscrutable Orientals”, either villains, sidekicks of villains or sometimes servants of heroes. Kwouk, who died this week, played those kinds of roles but occasionally broke out of type or at least gave a more nuanced performance. He believed someone had to play the roles “So why don’t I go in, get some money and try to elevate it a bit if I can?”

Cato was his most memorable role, attacking Inspector Clouseau at unexpected moments to help him hone his martial arts skills.

Kwouk pitched Cato perfectly, with an honest dedication to his duty despite Clouseau’s violent reprisals.

The movies made him a household name, opening up other opportunities.

He was born Herbert Tsangtse Kwouk in Warrington in Lancashire in 1930. His parents were from Shanghai but were touring England when he was born. They returned home with their new baby shortly after.

Kwouk’s father was a successful textile tycoon and Kwouk’s early years were spent in Shanghai being educated at the best schools. At 17 he went to the US to complete his education but in 1949 when the family fortune was lost when China became communist he had to make his own way in the world.

Staying in the US until 1954 he then headed to Europe and settled in Britain. There he worked a variety of jobs before a girlfriend convinced him to get into acting.

His first role was as Chang in a TV adaptation of a Morris West novel McCreary Moves In (1957), but he also talked his way into a role in the film Windom’s Way by convincing the director he spoke fluent Malay.

Burt Kwouk as Captain Yamauchi in the BBC TV series Tenko.

In the movie Inn Of The Sixth Happiness in 1958 he played Li, the Chinese prisoner redeemed by English missionary Gladys Aylward (played by Swedish actor Ingrid Bergman). Li later sacrifices his life to save a group of orphans.

He played the role with such conviction that it kept him consistently in work on TV and film. While many were stereotypes such as servants, Chinese restaurant owners, Asian henchmen or Japanese soldiers, he often gave the roles something that made people take notice.

Playing an evil nuclear scientist in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger brought him to a wider audience but it was probably a recurring part as resourceful manservant Chin Sung in the short-lived 1963 spy series The Sentimental Agent that snared him his most famous role as Clouseau’s manservant Cato.

Cato was the creation of Blake Edwards, the director and writer of the Pink Panther series. He didn’t appear in the first film The Pink Panther (1963). But for the second film, A Shot In The Dark (1964), Edwards wanted to send-up oriental martial arts, which were all the rage at the time and, according to Kwouk, were also taken too seriously in films.

Cato was Clouseau’s personal valet but he was under orders to attack Clouseau at random to keep the detective on his toes. Cato’s attacks become increasingly inventive but always stopped when he was needed to actually be Clouseau’s valet, usually giving Clouseau an opportunity to land a sucker blow to knock him out.

Burt Kwouk with his Order of the British Empire (OBE) award in London in 2011.

It was such a popular part of that film that Edwards expanded Cato’s role over the course of the franchise. He appeared in seven of the films, the character evolving to help Clouseau solve crimes and to later run a brothel and a Clouseau museum in the inspector’s apartment.

Kwouk said he got on well with Sellers and that he never really saw any of the actor’s “dark side” and that it was the “light side of Peter Sellers that I knew, enjoyed and like to remember”.

After Seller’s death in 1980 Kwouk appeared in three more Panther films, two using clips of Sellers and one with Roberto Benigni playing Clouseau’s son — but the post Sellers films were all flops.

But he was never out of demand and had some other memorable roles like Captain Yamauchi, the sadistic commandant in the 1980s series Tenko and he also played Entwhistle, the electrician from the exotic east — Hull — in Last Of The Summer Wine from 2002-2010.

He died on Tuesday, May 24 and is survived by his wife Caroline and son Chistopher.